


Glimpses

by femmenerd



Series: Glimpses 'verse [1]
Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural
Genre: Bisexual Female Character, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, F/M, Family, Fluff and Angst, Kid Fic, Redemption, Unplanned Pregnancy, hard-won HEA
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-09-13
Updated: 2006-09-13
Packaged: 2018-01-13 16:05:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 23,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1232683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/femmenerd/pseuds/femmenerd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This started out as me making a Faith/Dean fanmix. Then I realized that the mix had a chronology to it based on my fanon, so I decided to write a series of drabbles to explain that. Now what we have is around 24,000 words spanning about 15 years of narrative time paired with nineteen songs.</p><p>  <i>She’s fucking up his sense of up and down, with her preternatural strength and her lack of tact and the way it seems like she looks right through him sometimes. But Dean doesn’t care too much about that. Because under the care of Faith’s lapping tongue and writhing body, he feels something that isn’t death.</i></p><p> </p><p>  <i> On the surface, Faith seems like the kind of girl he should have met in a pool hall—somewhere sweaty, smoky and beer-soaked—instead of by these crumbling cliffs, kicking the shit out of the demon he came out here to meet, him with Sam in tow and guns blazing hot. Because in that case there would have just been anonymous sex and a complete lack of unfolding truths—it would have been so normal.</i></p><p> </p><p>The prologue takes place mid-S1 SPN and the rest of the story picks up a few months after the events of “Devil’s Trap,” making this a combination Buffyverse future!fic and post-S1 SPN AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue & Chapter 1: You Shook Me All Night Long

**Author's Note:**

  * For [greenapricot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenapricot/gifts).



> Originally posted on LJ [[here].](http://femmenerd.livejournal.com/124836.html)
> 
> Much love to [lettered](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lettered/pseuds/lettered) for beta-reading, cheerleading and kicking my ass into gear to make this thing better. 
> 
> *I'm a few laptops past when I first wrote this fic so I don't have the fanmix on hand, but I'll try and get that up soon.
> 
> **The prologue is the most "songfic-ish" part of the whole story, in that it has lyrics interspersed through the text, while the rest of the chapters just have quotes as epigraphs which you could skip right on over if desired.

 

 

 

 

 

  
  
Graphics by greenapricot who assures me that despite the fact that they look small-ish on my screen, if you print them out they're CD-cover-sized.

 

 

 

**Prologue: Straight Line/Not a Pretty Girl**

 

 

_If my father was an earthquake now,_ _then my mother was a hurricane._

_Me I kinda got my hands full_ _just a walkin’ in a straight line remembering my own name._

Dean holds his memories of his mother close to his chest, hiding them even from Sam, though he knows that’s unfair, knows the poor kid deserves _something_ of her too. But there are just a few things that he doesn’t share with his family, a few things that are only his. Even the Impala still feels like a hand-me-down, because it is. And Dean wishes he could remember more about how he’s like his Momma too—not just an attempt to be a cookie-cutter, younger version of John Winchester. And failing.

Her face blurs in his mind and Dean squints to see more clearly the afterimages of the life he almost had. She used to hum while she blew her Momma-breath onto the cuts and stings on his little-boy knees, acquired during long days of playing outside recklessly—days when he always ended up bruised and cranky from too much sun. Dean’s always been accident-prone; some things don’t change. But others do—Sam’s gentle when he tends to Dean’s war wounds, but he doesn’t sing and can’t kiss it all better.

She used to sing while she washed the dishes, letting Dean scamper underfoot and get in the way. Mary was the only other person in the family with a decent voice. And Mom’s still the only woman Dean’s ever really known, without lies or deception or a desperate need to get away—to the next town, the next job, the next turn of the bend.

He can see himself in the lines of his father’s face, and recognizes what’s reflected in Sammy’s eyes. But Dean wonders which parts of him came from her, and where they are today.

 

_I am not a pretty girl, that is not what I do._

Faith knows she’s fucking hot. She knows she’s sexy, and will use it whenever necessary, and often when it’s not. But she’s not Buffy and she’s never gonna be. The scars visible to no one else make her sneer and growl when someone approaches her with softness. She can’t trust it.

Being beautiful is something that comes from being loved, Faith thinks. It’s unconscious, something people wear without awareness of how they’re all hooked up in the people department.

And pretty is something Faith isn’t friends with. It’s one thing to lull idiot men or monsters into submission and then kick their asses like they don’t think you can. It’s another to expect your rosy cheeks and shiny hair to do all your talking for you. To not hide stakes and holy water in your back pocket. ‘Cause you never know when being tough is going to matter more than looking cute.

 

_When I was born, the trees around my home bled fire out into the arms of the sky._

_The world snapped beneath your feet and everything that was alive had died._

Innocence is something Dean hardly remembers. There’s fire burning behind his retinas half the time he lays his head down to sleep. So he tells lewd jokes and winks at the ladies during the day. And kills as many evil sons of bitches as possible during the night—penance for sins he hadn’t even committed yet when his whole world crackled and blazed away forever.

Sam though, never seems tainted. Even with blood on his face, he’s still a golden boy; it’ll wash away for him. Eventually he’ll go back to his college boy life, or some equivalent. But Dean knows that the death that clings to his denim ain’t washing out, and he doesn’t even know if he wants it to, because who the fuck would he be then?

 

_I ain't no damsel in distess,_

_and I don't need/to be rescued._

Faith used to want to die, to go down in either glory or ignominy—didn’t matter—as long it all fucking stopped at some point. But that’s over now. She’s not afraid of death. Faith’s just not courting it anymore.

She likes to think that she took part in her own rescue, that it wasn’t just Angel and the California penal system. And if you fight by her side now, you better pull your own weight and not try to haul any of hers. Because Faith needs to feel useful, needs to feel the strength flowing through her veins, the fierce gravity of her fists landing hard.

 

  _I was born to a cold wind. Take the color right out of your eyes._

_I just keep what I can carry now, and leave the rest behind._

Dean doesn’t need or want anything more than will fit inside the Impala. He doesn’t allow himself to ask for anything else. That’s pointless and besides, what the hell else is there?

 

_Maybe you'd prefer a maiden fair._

_Isn't there a kitten stuck up a tree somewhere?_

Faith says fuck you if you don’t want her. She doesn’t want you either. She doesn’t want anything that she didn’t earn, find or steal herself. Really.

 

 

 

 

  
**You Shook Me All Night Long**

_She was a fast machine._   
_She kept her motor clean._   
_She was the fastest damn woman that I ever seen._

_She had sightless eyes,_   
_Telling me no lies,_   
_Knockin' me out with those American thighs._

_Taking more than her share,_   
_Had me fighting for air,_   
_She told me to come, but I was already there._

_'Cause the walls started shaking,_   
_The earth was quaking,_   
_My mind was achin',_   
_And we were makin' it and you—_

_Shook me all night long,_   
_Yeah you, shook me all night long._

 

It’s been ninety-three days since Dean buried his father in Kansas soil when he first meets Faith. It was a funeral attended by few, quickly over, and Sam and Dean are out of Lawrence before the overly cheese-filled casseroles from the wake are fully digested or their (physical) wounds are completely healed. Now that their parents are together and out-of-reach, there’s no reason to linger.

The ocean here is ferocious and white-tipped. In Dean’s mind it seems to complement her wildness just fine, even though she is not California with its bleached-blonde cheer and glaring, obvious beauty. No, Faith is all flashing brown eyes, swagger, secrets and hot-sex-all-night-long.

She’s tireless, and he could use some energy this go around.

She is also fucking up his sense of up and down, with her preternatural strength and her lack of tact and the way it seems like she looks right through him sometimes. But Dean doesn’t care too much about that. Because under the care of Faith’s lapping tongue and writhing body, he feels something that isn’t death.

On the surface, Faith seems like the kind of girl he should have met in a pool hall—somewhere sweaty, smoky and beer-soaked—instead of by these crumbling cliffs, kicking the shit out of the demon _he_ came out here to meet, him with Sam in tow and guns blazing hot. Because in that case there would have just been anonymous sex and a complete lack of unfolding truths—it would have been so normal.

“Normal” sure as hell isn’t arriving on the scene to find a girl the size of Sam’s pinky pulling off kicks and spins that make Dean dizzy.

 ~ 

“Watch out, boys. Give a girl some room to work, will ya?”

Without words, Dean and Sam join the fight, because even if they can’t figure out what the hell _she_ is, the other thing has a distinct green hue to it and a bunch of spiny-ass scales. Seems like a pretty safe bet on which side to pick. And when she barrels into Dean after a particularly nasty swat from the creature, her skin feels warm and human and she smells like girl and dirtysweet things he can’t even articulate.

Since Sam and Dean can’t find the _right_ demon, they’ve continued killing every other variety of ghoulie that crosses their path—even if it means coming to California, where his brother’s eyes grow dimmer with each passing day.

Sam has grown quietly more vicious since the accident and in the end it is he who cuts off the demon’s head. Faith smiles like she’s known the two of them all their lives and says, “So. Welcome to LA. Out-of-towners, right?”

Dean gapes at first, then lets nature take its course and opens his mouth. “You the welcome wagon, sweetheart?” He gives her his best lipcurling smirk, just as if he weren’t a newly-orphaned son.

Sam makes a sweeping glance from Faith, where she pants and wipes the sweat from her brow with her forearm, to Dean, who’s grinning like a kid on Christmas morning, and makes a pained face.

“You’re disgusting, man,” he stage whispers.

Dean just winks at Sam and replies, “Maybe so, but this is my lucky fucking day so cut me a little slack, Sammy.”

Because she’s just the drug he’s been looking for, to ease this pain.

 ~

Faith says she’s here visiting “a friend” in town, but goes home to their motel room with him anyway. Sam sleeps in the car, only mildly disgruntled.

Barely inside the door and she’s voracious, licking his mouth, climbing blue jean and leather. Dean groans and holds her ass in two hands, unable to keep his muscles from shaking as he bears her slight weight. Her head smashes against the wall but Faith only laughs and bites his lip. Dean’s eyes are open while they kiss; hers are closed.

Dean is strung tight and hot and ready, ready, ready for this, so it makes no sense when he hears his voice say, “You running from something, baby?”

“Always,” she shoots back, then smiles pretty with a razorblade glint in her eyes. “So, are you gonna fuck me now or what?”

“Hell. Yes,” Dean says, his voice lowering to grunts because that’s enough truth for now and she’s burning a hole through his fly with all these gyrations.

He takes her and she takes him and yet there still seems to be some left over; it’s a mobius loop of _need it, need it_ making a closed circuit between open mouths—cock and pussy, stranger to stranger, fighter to fighter.

In the stillness of later, he watches her ash into a cup by the side of the bed, staring at her mouth as she talks in smoky breaths, spinning her crazy tales that just might be true. And Dean wonders if Faith spills this much to all the guys or if this is a fluke. Maybe it’s just because she already knows that he keeps rock salt and books of incantations in his trunk.

She tells him about a secret society and an army of monster-fighting girls. Dean rubs his hand through his hair and replies, “At this point, I’m willing to believe almost anything.”

 ~

In the morning there is greasy-spoon breakfast and toothy smirks from Sam, which is good—Dean will take the cheek from his kid brother if it means he gets to see him smile again. He doesn’t know why his one night stand is still here and mooching off him for eats or more importantly why he doesn’t mind. But he’d woken up to the sound of her zipping up her pants and saying, “Hey pretty boy, you’re gonna feed me, right?”

In the paper there is news of a massacre at a club downtown, ten victims with wounded necks. Faith says, “Oh, this is _so_ my gig.” She shrugs. “But I’ll let you help if you want.”

Dean snorts and Sam says, “Huh, wha?” through a mouthful of grits. Faith flashes a piece of wood out from under her sleeve and Sam chuckles. “I don’t know who you are, lady, but those don’t work.”

Faith slams down her coffee mug. Dean steadies it so it doesn’t spill. She rolls her eyes and says, “I’m Faith the friggin’ vampire slayer and a few thousand kills say that they do.” Says, “I don’t know what kind of mutants or whatever you guys met up with, but sure I’ll believe you, I’ve seen some weird shit.” Then she takes a blithe sip of her just-rescued coffee and adds, “Hey, did you know that Dracula is for real?”

So Sam and Dean exchange bemused glances and say sure, you can tag along. There doesn’t really seem to be any saying no to this chick.

When the last vamp dusts, Faith is breathing hard, twirling her stake between two fingers. She sidles up to Dean where he stands with a sword in his hand, blinking. He doesn’t like it as much as his shotgun. Not at all.

She fucks him later in the backseat of his car while his brother brushes his teeth like a good boy and goes to bed. Smooth thighs around Dean's waist, titties in his mouth, and her watching him greedily as he comes.

Moonlight falls in Dean’s lap as he’s zipping up his fly and this crazy girl he _must_ have just imagined is saying, “Let’s go back to the cliffs. Have ya ever gone skinnydipping, Kansas? Nothing like nothing between you and the waves, I always say.”

Dean’s never been before—he comes from a landlocked state.

In the water, Faith transforms into a luminous, elfin thing and he laughs and smacks her ass with a salty-wet hand and for a few seconds forgets about the other things that go boom in the night.

 ~

Eventually Faith does shuck off, saying she’s gotta go talk to this friend of hers. (What kind of a pussy name is “Angel” anyway?) Dean figures that’s the last he’ll see of her, and she’ll just go back to whatever never-never land she came from and it’ll just be him and Sam and their aimless anger again.

But she comes back later that same day. Sam’s out buying supplies and Dean has the door locked, watching bad daytime TV and contemplating jerking off. Faith picks the lock and before he knows it she’s tossed a duffel bag on the floor and started jumping on the bed, springs creaking and headboard slamming against the decrepit motel room wall. There’s practically sparks emitting from her body as she bounces like she’s twelve, turns the radio on and starts singing along—badly—to an old AC/DC song. Angus is Dean’s man all the way, but right now he’d like to see _her_ in a school uniform. Yeah, that’d hit the spot.

He can’t help but smile as Faith contorts her face to the music, for a moment or two looking young and sweet despite the pound of eyeliner rimming her eyes. Her hair gets tangled as she head bangs like it’s the seventies, and when she flops down on the bed next to him Dean has to do some serious excavation to get his tongue in her mouth.

He’s woozy and turned the fuck on by the time Faith whispers into his open lips, “So about that sweet ride of yours—any chance of me hitchin’ towards Cleveland with you boys?”

Sam’s gonna bitch and moan, but right now Dean can’t see why not.

 ~

Sam quirks a brow when Faith skips ahead of them towards the car in heavy-booted clomps, yelling out, “You gonna let me drive, stud?”

Dean smacks his brother on the arm and hollers back, “You freakin’ crazy, woman?”

Girl’s rattled his foundations, but not _that_ much.


	2. Chapter 2: Avalanche

  **Avalanche**

_One foot in front of the other_  
 _One foot back to counter it_  
 _Days like these you've got to find it in some other way_  
 _It's all or nothing baby_

_Avalanche, start inside of me_  
 _Avalanche, down through the trees_  
 _Avalanche, start inside of me_  
 _Avalanche, hell down through the trees_

_If everyone's a casualty_  
 _Then take your time there ain't no trouble_  
 _If the weather's fine and we're feeling crazy_  
 _There's always drinks and dancing in the rubble_  
 _I'm spinning and you're spinning_  
 _The world's spinning and we're laughing_  
 _And I'm charming, the devil's charming_  
 _And we're ruined but we're still building_  
 _And I'm selling and you're counting_  
 _The world's stopping but we keep going_  
 _And we're ruthless and we're cunning_  
 _And I'm heir to it all_

 

Somehow they never seem to make it to Cleveland. It’s a big country and along the way they keep running smack dab into hauntings and succubi and what the fuck else. And every once in a while there’s a stray clue—something that _might_ be the work of the Demon. Dead ends always, but Faith seems to be willing to go along for the ride. Sam doesn’t know what the hell it is she’s avoiding, but that’s not his problem, and besides she keeps Dean something close to happy (though he just grins nastily when Sam tries to get him to talk).

Sam asked her one day, “Don’t you have like, a _job_ or something?”

Faith shrugged and lit up a cigarette, coming close to blowing smoke in Sam’s face but at the last minute not, and smiled in that devilish way that always seemed to make his brother get at least fifty percent more stupid. “My job’s killing bad things, Sammy, and I’ve been doing a good amount of that lately, wouldn’t you say? I mean, who needs a hellmouth when you’ve got pickin’s like these?”

He doesn’t like her calling him Sammy any more than when Dean does it, but Faith is now the second (living) person on the list who wouldn’t get decked for it.

Sam would never date a girl like Faith—she’s too crude, too fast—her edges are too sharp. It’s not that he doesn’t _like_ her, it’s just that the image in his head of love is a little softer (more like Jess). But that’s a moot point anyway; there’s no room in his life for that kind of thing. Besides, Dean managed to find the one girl they’ve met who you can tell the family secret to without her running away or trying to get you locked up (who wouldn’t just end up getting hurt because of Sam). According to Faith there are more of her kind out there, but they never run into any of them. And if it weren’t for the weird, late-night, international phone calls she makes every now and again, Sam would think she was completely full of shit.

Faith can put away as many drinks as Sam can (and definitely more than Dean, but that’s another story altogether), so it’s a good thing that they’ve got a twelve-pack between them as they sit down on this old porch swing—a place to rest courtesy of the their latest, thankful “employer.” Arizona is fine this time of year, which is a welcome change from the more frigid climates they’ve been traversing these past few months.

“Man, pretty boy sure does need his beauty rest, huh? It’s only eight o’clock,” Faith says, cracking open her first bottle of the night.

“Well, with the way you work him over…” Sam cuts himself off when he catches Faith’s grin.

Faith laughs and tosses him her lighter so he can open his own beer. They sit in companionable silence for a moment or two, watching the last rays of sunlight go over the horizon—Faith swinging her boots (never touching the ground) and Sam steadying the movement of the swing with one long, outstretched leg, counter-balancing by grounding his foot on the wooden slats of the porch itself.

“You know,” Sam says, after taking a long pull on his beer, “to listen to you guys talk, it’s like you don’t even know each others’ names. You’re all ‘Kansas’ this and ‘Tiger’ that, and Dean’s even lamer—‘Sweetheart’ and ‘Sugarlips’ and…” Sam pauses to grimace. “‘…Wildcat.’ It’s disgusting, I’m telling you. I mean, he’s my brother—I always knew he was a cheeseball, but the two of you really seem to bring out the retardo factor in one another.”

Faith lets out a throaty gurgle that might be a giggle if she were someone else, mixed with beer and roughened by too many cigarettes on the road. Sam really can’t fathom how she keeps up her fighting stamina, smoking like that. “Oh, he says my name sometimes, all right,” she says, raising a gloating eyebrow.

“Oh, hell no. What’s wrong with me tonight? I really did not need to hear that,” Sam rejoins, following this statement with a muffled, “not that I haven’t already. Bleh.”

“Well, Slim. You ask a girl a question, you better be sure you’re up for the answer. Besides, you tellin’ me you never called a girl ‘baby?’ Oh yeah, that’s totally your style, isn’t it? I bet you’re sweet as pie—holding hands at the movies and saying ‘honey’ and giving her your jacket when it’s chilly outside and all that shit.”

Sam can tell that her words are affectionate—in her way—but they make him feel cold inside. He can hear Jess’s phantom, breathy voice in his ear, _“Sam honey, wake up. It’s just a dream, baby, wake up.”_ He rubs his eyes with one hand and looks down. He can’t meet Faith’s eyes.

“Oh shit, Sam. I’m sorry. Look, I’m an asshole—I was just born with this foot in my mouth see. Just forget I said anything, all right?” He gives her a quick sideways glance and sees genuine regret in Faith’s deep, brown eyes.

“It’s okay,” Sam parcels out, draining his bottle and reaching for another. “It’s not your fault. I just…fuck!” He slips his fingers through his hair—grown shaggy—and briefly thinks about how Jess always did like his hair longish—thought it was cute. Floodgates, man. Sam feels foolish and a little ashamed. There’s no need to unload this kind of crap on his brother’s woman. On anyone.

“Sam,” Faith says, voice unusually soft and even in tone. “You don’t need to open up to me or anything like that. But look, let me just say—I may not totally get it or whatever, but I’ve seen my fair share of people die. Messes you up good. I know that.” Her voice trails off at the end and Sam looks up to find her chewing on a fingernail and gazing at him with an illegible storminess writ large on her face.

Sam nods and says nothing at first. He’s…surprised, hearing her talk seriously like this—stringing together _multiple_ sentences without a single quip. As much as Faith’s a mystery, he’d almost stopped contemplating where she came from—where she’s been—and what it is that makes her wake up at night in cold sweats just like him. She’s become a staple—a weird, remote-control-hogging ubiquity who fights dirty and rough and somehow manages to accomplish miracles like taking down demons three times her size with little more than her fists and a few insults—not to mention getting his brother to purchase tampons on stolen credit cards and the like.

“Thanks,” Sam says quietly, worrying his lip as he searches for a reply. He’s not sure he’s had enough to drink to be having this conversation, but something about the relative peace they’re experiencing after this job is making him feel headswimmy and numb enough to contemplate it. He knows he’s gotten harder since Dad died, despite the fact that half the time he doesn’t even believe John’s truly gone. Because Sam didn’t _see_ it happen. Just woke up in the hospital to a battered Dean across the room and a sad-eyed nurse who told them that she was “sorry for their loss.” Sometimes he still expects his father to show up out of the blue and tell him just exactly how much he’s fucking up—wishes for that.

And he’s almost completely stopped thinking about having a “normal life” ever again.

“It’s cool, man,” Faith says, interrupting his thoughts. “We don’t have to have a heart-to-heart or nothin’. I just wanted you to know that I’m…” She stops short, for once at an apparent loss for words, but then regains her composure enough to go on. “…sorry about everything that happened to you. That’s all. Aw, screw it. I sound lame—ignore me.”

Sam catches her gaze and really looks at her, stammering and swearing, and he thinks about how it’s good when people can still surprise you, in spite of everything. He smiles then, just slightly, and hands her another beer. “You’re all right, Faith. I know I give you shit sometimes, but really, you’re all right.”

Faith grins a lopsided, maroon-lipsticked smile before guzzling down an impressive swallow of beer, then lets out a belch that convinces Sam that he should _never_ tell her about the burp-a-thon contests he and Dean used to have when they were kids and bored. There’d be no stopping her competitive streak then. On the other hand, Sam really does get a kick out of it whenever she does just about _anything_ that ruffles his brother’s feathers. If nothing else, she’s worth having around for that.

“But—” Sam tags on as an afterthought, “if you hurt my brother, I _will_ have to kill you.”

Now _that_ catches Faith a little off-guard, as evidenced by the way she chokes a bit and spits out some beery foam onto the edge of the porch. She recovers quickly though, sassing out the words, “Like to see you try, Winchester,” with the typical bravado he’s grown accustomed to spilling out of her mouth. But then she shuts up for a minute, sags her shoulders, and adds quietly, “I’d never do it on purpose, man. I can give you that.”

Sam nods slightly and looks out into the rising dark. There’s all kinds of crazy shit waiting for them out there. But together they have half a chance. That’s something, anyway.


	3. Chapter 3: Woman Like a Man

**Woman Like a Man**

_You wanna get boned._  
 _You wanna get stoned._  
 _You wanna get a room like no one else._  
 _You wanna be rich._  
 _You wanna be kitsch._  
 _You wanna be the bastard of yourself._  
 _You wanna get burned._  
 _You wanna get turned._  
 _You wanna get fucked inside out._  
 _You wanna be ruled._  
 _You wanna be fooled._  
 _You wanna be a woman like a man like a woman like a man._

 

“Her name was Sarah. The first one, that was her name.”

Faith takes a drag off of her cigarette, tilting her head up to release the smoke in slow curls that proceed to mist hazily up towards the ceiling. When she looks back down, she meets Dean’s eyes and cuts off his lifted eyebrow and matching smirk quickly. “Hey, don’t even _start_ with that ‘Girls Gone Wild’ shit or I’ll kick your ass so fast, you won’t even have time to cry out for your Sammy. You hear that, Winchester?”

Dean just lifts his hands in the universal language of “who me?” and grabs her cigarette from where she’s emphasizing her threats with fervent, smoky gesticulation. “Whatever, _Lehane_ , just get on with it, already.” He takes a puff and hands the smoke back to her.

Sam’s off on a solo recon mission and the two of them have been holed up in the motel room by their blessed selves all day long, fucking, eating vending machine snacks, and— well, fucking. But they’re both tired at this point and something about the quiet and the alone time and the—shhh, don’t say it out loud— _intimacy_ has started them down the road of “losing your virginity” stories.

There might have been some mutual affectionate teasing of Sam and the super earnest tone he used yesterday when talking to that unfortunate chick they all had the pleasure of rescuing from a run-of-the-mill haunting. And then Dean might have laugh-sighed and said, “Man, how that guy _ever_ lost his cherry is beyond me.”

And then Faith could have shot back with “Oh yeah, and how exactly did you lose it, Casanova?”

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

“Hey, I asked first.”

“I’m waaaaaiting.”

“All right, fine.” A beat. “Whiner.”

“So,” Faith is saying, “her name was Sarah, and she was older. Blonde. Like shiny, cheerleader, bubble gum, straight-girl blonde. Too bad I didn’t know what a freaking triumph _that_ was. She lived down the block. Used to be my babysitter and stuff.” Faith’s puffing away pretty doggedly on the cigarette, clearly enjoying Dean’s enthralled facial expression, for all of her protestations.

“Hold up. Wait. She was your _babysitter_?”

“Uh, yeah. Wasn’t at the time though. I was thirteen by then. She was like, seventeen maybe? Not a whole lot older, and she hadn’t watched me since I was a little kid. Anyway. . .”

Dean uses his fingertip to shush her. “Yeah, slow down there, sweetheart. I need a moment here to let this soak in. You seriously fucked the babysitter? That’s like—that’s like every little boy’s wet dream or something. At least I think it is. Sam and I never really had babysitters, being on the road and everything. But dude, if you were a guy, I’d _totally_ slap you high five.”

“If I was a guy? Give it here, buddy.” Faith stubs her butt out in the ashtray by the side of the bed and raises her hand palm up. Dean gives her a slow smile and complies.

“Okay, so you clearly win round one, ‘cause I’m not sure I’ve got anything on that. Take a shot.” He hands her a half-empty bottle of Wild Turkey. “What about guys? Who was the first dude?”

Faith leans in close and flutters her eyelashes. “You,” she says, holding a straight face just long enough for Dean to blink heavily and open his mouth a few times before squeaking, “Really?” in a way that’s neither dignified nor manly. Then Faith grins widely and grabs the neck of the whiskey bottle. “Sucker!” she exclaims and glugs it down neat—no “ewwww” face as a chaser.

“Bitch,” Dean shoots back sheepishly, but laughs.

Thankfully for Dean’s pride Faith plows on with her narration. “Carlos. This girl Maria’s big brother. He shot his load in like two minutes and still acted like he was all that. Nothing to write home about. Now it’s your turn, buddy boy. Here, have some liquid courage.”

“Don’t need it, but gimme anyway.” Dean takes a long pull on the bottle and ends up coughing slightly. Faith laughs. She can’t help it. “I was fifteen. She was the daughter of a job,” he begins, paying her no mind.

“So what, are all people just jobs to you?” Faith ribs…literally. She starts digging her fingers into Dean’s sides until he thrashes and kicks spasmodically. But then she lets him pin her down on the mattress, hair splayed over the pillow. Dean’s expression goes from tortured and overly tickled to serious in two seconds flat as he gazes down at Faith, brushing her hair away from where it’s stuck, sweat-soaked, to her face.

“Sam’s not.” They both hold their breath. “You’re not,” he adds.

Things get awkwardly quiet until Faith snaps the elastic of Dean’s boxer-briefs. “So, like you were saying—this grateful girl you all saved, you nailed her, huh?”

“Yeah.” He grins, exhaling. “Emily. She was my age and a virgin too, I think. We snuck out into the woodshed at her dad’s place. . .”

“Ooooh, romantic.”

“Shut the fuck up. Do you want to hear this story or what?” Dean says without malice.

Faith mimes zipping her mouth shut, and looks at Dean with an exaggerated attentive expression on her quirking features.

“So right. Uh, yeah, woodshed. We did it. I never saw her again. It’s a pretty boring story, actually.” He clears his throat. “So, you and the whole girls thing? One time event or habitual muff-diving extravaganza?”

Faith ignores him for a minute, stretching her leg up into the air and touching her toes before dragging her fingers on down. When she reaches where the sheets are bunched up around her crotch, she looks up to find a dumbstruck Dean staring with eyes flitting back and forth from her hands to her leg. “You’re so _easy_ , you know that right?” Faith says, rolling her eyes. Dean doesn’t disagree. “And to answer your question, yeah, I’ve had my share of luck with the ladies. What of it? Wanna compare score cards?”

“I’ve been around,” Dean says, still mesmerized by the hand/leg combo.

“I can tell,” Faith replies, showing dimples that don’t usually get too much airtime.

It takes Dean a minute or two before he registers that that was a compliment, but when he does he lets it show with a quick, self-satisfied nod of the head before bringing things back on topic. “So you like the blondes then? What about that Buffy chick? Any extra-curricular Slayer duties there?”

Faith breaks tone and shakes her head, eking the words out slowly, “Nah, not really. B’s _way_ too uptight.”

“Not really? How exactly do you ‘not really’ fuck someone? Maybe I just don’t understand you _lesbians_.” Dean earns a punch on the arm for that.

“Well, we kinda made out once, waaaay back in the day. After some normal slayage mish, I was all revved up and horny—you know how I get. . .”

Dean gives her a filthy look. “Do I ever.”

Faith swats him off half-heartedly as he proceeds to start pawing her. “Yeah, anyways, so I kissed her and she was _totally_ into it—no matter what she’d say now—and then bam, she fucking slapped me! And _I’m_ supposed to be the bad one.” Faith’s voice trails off.

“Ah, so denied then? Didn’t realize that _happened_ to you.” Dean knows it’s a risky move, but says it anyway.

“Oh, shut up. Buffy just—well, she has a hard time breaking the vampire habit or whatever.”

“Meaning what? She screws vampires? That’s—that’s fucked up.” Dean’s jaw is gaping wide open now. Faith shuts it with her hand.

“Yeah, well, the first one has a soul, fights on the side of light and puppies and whatever. And the second one—well, he has a soul now too, but he didn’t at first, and—whatever, apparently _I’m_ just not B’s kink. Anyway, moving on.” Faith’s tone has turned a little sharp towards the end of her little rant so Dean decides—for once—to just let it lie.

But first he feels obligated to repeat, “That’s fucked up, man. Sleeping with demons?”

“The world’s not as black and white as you think it is, Dean.” Faith’s staring at him hard, pupils like big, black dinner plates.

“Yeah, I guess.”

A heavy silence spreads through the hazy dark of the room until Faith breaks it with, “So, have you ever?”

“Ever what?” Dean says, idly stroking her naked hip.

“You know. Hooked up with a guy?”

The slow circles his fingertips have been making against her skin stop suddenly and Dean looks up. “What?” He blinks.

Faith places his hands back on her body deliberately and sits up to straddle him, dark hair falling every which way. She grinds herself onto his once-again hardening cock, licks her lips and growls out, “That’d be _wicked_ hot.”

“Me? With a dude? That turns you on?” Dean manages to get that much out as she continues to dry hump the living daylights out of him.

“You tellin’ me you don’t get hot and bothered thinking about me eating pussy?

Dean swallows audibly. “You have a dirty fucking mouth there, missy.”

Faith laughs yet again and licks a line up his neck, moving up to whisper in his ear, “Yeah, and you like it.”

Dean shudders and runs his hand through his own hair, then pauses and starts to comb it through hers. And then there’s some breathless, tangled-up kissing just as if their lips weren’t already bruised. Because. Necessary.

When their mouths are hardly separated, shining beads of spit threading between them, Faith touches her hand to Dean’s face tenderly and breathes into his mouth, “You have no idea how hard I want you to fuck me right now.”

Dean grabs the back of Faith’s neck to bring her back and kisses her with the kind of force that’s becoming habitual.

“Yes,” he mumbles. “I do.”


	4. Chapter 4: Black Dog

**Black Dog**

_Hey, hey, mama, said the way you move_  
 _Gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove._  
 _Ah, ah, child, way you shake that thing_  
 _Gonna make you burn, gonna make you sting._  
 _Hey, hey, baby, when you walk that way_  
 _Watch your honey drip, can't keep away._

~

_All I ask for, all I pray,_  
 _Steady loaded woman gonna come my way._  
 _I need a woman gonna hold my hand_  
 _Won't tell me no lies, make me a happy man._

 

Faith is fun. That’s pretty much Dean’s favorite thing about her. She drinks and smokes and curses up a cheerful storm and kicks demon ass like nothing else he’s ever seen. She has a hot, hot body and she knows how to use it—how to tie him up in knots. She can do the Axl dance while lip synching _and_ doing air guitar to every single song off of “Appetite for Destruction.” She eats her steak bloody and chases it down with beer.

He’s never met a girl like her before, and Dean’s met a lot of girls, you know.

Sure, Faith irritates him sometimes, especially when she insinuates that she’s stronger than he is (which is true but that is absolutely no reason to say it _out loud_ ), but also when she uses up all of the hot water in the shower.

He never gets tired of fucking her—sometimes he gets too tired _to_ fuck her, after really strenuous brawls or multiple state drives, but she never fails to get him hard, sometimes just with a brush of her fingers against his thigh when Sam’s not looking.

It was weird how she came into his life (and when), but the eight months or so since then have zipped by faster than they should have and now he’s used to her. They don’t talk about what they’re doing with one another—they just keep living and fighting and moving along. Dean doesn’t know much about her history really, but he gets the feeling that if it’s possible, she has an even spottier romantic record than he does. For one thing, he’s never once heard the word “boyfriend” come out of her mouth—just “this dude,” and “yeah, there was this guy” or “this chick back in the day.”

But she’s always got his back—Sam’s too.

So of course, it comes as a sickening shock when he realizes that he’s totally fucking in love with her.

Because how do you hold down a woman like that? Especially if you’re scrabbling for cover nearly every fucking day. (Especially if you’ve only once said those words to someone who wasn’t your kin and it totally bit you on the ass.)

Faith hardly even mentions Cleveland anymore, and Dean only has the vaguest ideas of why she was going there in the first place. Right now though, Dean’s not even that concerned with whether or when she’ll take off, but rather that she’ll _find out_.

 ~

They’re in Portland, Oregon, which is a weird town full of weirdos. There was a poltergeist hanging out in some kind of punk rock, free-love, hippie commune full of kids who do things like spout poetry and make their own homemade magazines and carry around books of philosophy in impractical, over-the-shoulder bags—not a single one of them prepared for something _real_.

Just when they’re about to skip town—Dean’s already beginning to pick up his shit to put back in the car—Faith says, “Hey boys, I just got an awesome idea. Let’s hit a strip bar tonight.” Sam’s mouth drops open.

Dean grins. “Sweet.”

“C’mon, Sammy,” Faith teases, getting on tippy-toes to ruffle Sam’s overhanging bangs until he pushes her back playfully with the palm of his hand on her shoulder, “it’ll be fun. I _know_ there’s some red-blooded man in there somewhere.”

Sam looks at Dean. “She’s insane, man. There’s this crazy girl following us around and…”

“Don’t be such a little bitch, Sam. She’s a genius is what she is.”

Because, you see, Dean _loves_ strip clubs. Really, what’s not to like? Booze, naked girls, and if he’s lucky, pool tables swarming with guys whose brains have leaked out their ears from so much close proximity to gyrating, shaven pussy—easy marks.

They practically have to drag Sam, but that’s pretty fun actually. The bar Faith picks is small, red-lit and smoky, and oddly, filled with about as many women in the audience as there are men. Huh. Dean knew that the West Coast was freaky-deaky but wow.

He buys a round of shots and chasers, kisses Faith carelessly on the side of the head and wanders off to the pool tables to do some “work.” Dean makes sure not to rip anyone off _too_ much, because tonight doesn’t seem like the kind of night where they want to get run off too early. Three games in and he’s got enough cash in his pockets to buy Sam a couple of lap dances (if he’ll take ‘em) plus a few more rounds and then a bit more, so that’s good enough. So far, all right.

But when he looks up, Dean stops in his tracks, because Faith’s holding court down by the stage, completely surrounded by a bevy of tattooed strippers as Sam slinks down into his chair beside her and nurses his Bud light in apparent fright. Faith’s leaning back in her chair and smiling wide, denim-covered knees splayed as she watches the platinum blonde on the stage shake her ass. She nods her head to the music and licks her fingers before pulling bills out of a wad of cash—his cash—and scattering a few at the girl’s feet. The blonde chick spins around and smiles at Faith, blowing kisses her way. There are prickles going up and down Dean’s spine.

But nothing could prepare him for what happens next. Pushed up by a few of the off-duty girls, Faith proceeds to get up on the stage and ride the pole in her jeans and boots, pulling off acrobatics that these other girls could only dream of, and Dean’s never been so proud, almost ever.

When the song ends, Faith takes a bow before plopping back in her chair and lighting a cigarette—a cigarette that is promptly ganked by a black-haired girl with Betty Page bangs and a leopard print outfit to match. The girl blows a few perfect smoke rings before leaning over and laying one on Faith. Dean stands like a statue and watches as she plays tonsil hockey with his girl— _his girl_ —in front of an entire bar full of people.

Dean’s now hot in parts of his body that he usually forgets about, and horny as hell, and a few other swirly emotions he can’t name to boot. It’s time to call it a night.

 ~

“Get your own room, Sam,” Dean orders, laying a palmful of green in his brother’s hand. Sam coughs, spinning on his heel and booking it right quick.

“Got some big plans for tonight, Tiger? Anything I should know ‘bout?” Faith’s tilting backward and forward from heel to toe of her cowboy boots and staring up at him cheeky and bright.

He says nothing, kissing her roughly instead and backing her towards their motel room, denim rubbing up against denim as their bodies trip and flail through the door.

“You’re such a guy,” she exclaims, laughing, as he vaults them both onto the bed with a bounce, grasping for her breasts, her belly, anything his hands catch hold on first. “See, I _knew_ you were into the girl-on-girl, just like all the rest of your kind.”

That’s it, and it’s also not, but Dean can’t talk to Faith right now—he has to fuck her, like right the fuck now. That’s all he knows and he feels a little crazy and out-of-control and he’s shaking like a goddamn leaf.

Some things definitely rip in Dean’s haste to remove clothing and most likely a button or two gets lost. It’s the sweaty, earnest kind of screwing, the kind where you see colors behind your eyes if you close them real hard. The kind where Dean _knows_ that his ass is gonna be sore the next day from clenching so tight.

“Damn! That was something else. I should take you out like that more often,” Faith says in a gravelly lilt as he’s lying on his back, spent and panting after the fact. Dean’s staring at the yellowing cracks in the ceiling, silent other than the deep breaths of air he’s taking in order to catch up.

“You still alive there, boy?” Faith asks.

He rolls over, feeling like he’s been fucked stupid, because there are words racing through his head that he should definitely not say.

“Earth to Dean Winchester. Hello!” She actually sounds a little worried now.

“I—I don’t want you to fuck anyone else,” Dean says finally, low-pitched and angry at himself, a little ashamed.

“Settle down, Tiger. I hardly even _talk_ to anyone else. Besides Sam, of course.” Faith puts her hand on his bare chest and gives him a saucy look.

“Don’t tease me, woman. Not now,” he rumbles.

Faith fluffs his hair like he’s five and Dean swats her off, annoyed down deep into his bones. Why the fuck did he have to say anything? Things were going so good.

But then she leans in and gets within kissing distance, lips parted, pupils trained on his so close Dean’s going a bit cross-eyed, and says, “It’s cool, Kansas, don’t worry, I’ll be your steady...lay.” When she grins he can feel the slow exhale of her breath on his chin, and when she kisses him, wet and slow, Dean's insides flip.

He kisses her back, rolling them both over and tongue-fucking her something fierce. This is enough. Yeah, this is okay.

At the break of their liplock, Faith whispers, “Can we still go to strip clubs?”

Dean laughs then, mostly at himself. “Hell yeah, we’ll go...as long as you come home with _me_ at the end of the night. And next time, we’ve gotta get Sammy laid. Or a lapdance at least.”

“Deal,” Faith says, fitting her head into the crook of his armpit.


	5. Chapter 5: This is Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Small amount of dialogue taken from BtVS 3.7, "Revelations.”
> 
> Faith to Buffy: _“Now it's strictly get some, get gone. You can't trust guys.”_

  **This is Love**

_I can't believe life's so complex_  
 _When I just wanna' sit here and watch you undress._  
 _This is love that I'm feeling._  
 _Does it have to be a life full of dread?_  
 _I wanna chase you round the table, I wanna' touch your head._  
 _This is love that I'm feeling._  
 _I can't believe that the axis turns on suffering_  
 _When you taste so good._  
 _I can't believe that the axis turns on suffering_  
 _While my head burns._  
 _This is love that I'm feeling._  
 _Even in the summer, even in the spring_  
 _You can never get too much of a wonderful thing._  
  
 _You're the only story that I never told_  
 _You're my dirty little secret, wanna' keep you so._  
 _Come on out, come on over, help me forget._  
 _Keep the walls from falling on me, tumbling in._  
 _This is love that I'm feeling._

 

Faith watches Dean get ready for bed every night. When Sam’s there, Dean strips down to boxer-briefs and sleeps in those. When he’s not, and it’s just the two of them alone, they both sleep naked and sometimes Dean does a stupid, jokey dance for her, swinging his cock around and scrunching up his face. But Faith likes it best when he goes through his rituals without fanfare, when she can watch him carefully place his gun on the counter, grunt while he pulls off his boots, undo his watch, tear off his T-shirt, shrug out of his jeans and roll his underwear down his legs, then yawn and scratch his head, wearing nothing but his necklace and the secret smile he saves just for her. Dean’s a fuckin’ hottie and he knows it, inside and out—yet he also doesn’t. Not really. She sees the way he looks at Sam, like there’s something there that he lacks. Faith’s almost sorry when he turns off the light, except that then he gets in bed and everything is subsumed in musky boy-warmth. She feels almost...safe.

~

Faith feels like a kid around Dean and Sam a lot of the time—not the kind of kid that she really was when she was young, the kind of kid she imagines they were before their mother went up in flames: silly, young and free. Innocent. They’re friends as much as they are brothers and it’s infectious—the way that they find things to joke about in between fights to the death with inhuman creatures and mourning their dead. They give each other noogies when they’re drunk. It’s good.

 ~

It’s a truly fucked up world they’re living in, and Dean and Faith are both the type of people who live without wool covering their eyes—who know all about the things that go bump in the night. Dean knows more about being loved though—about loving—for all he tries to behave as though he doesn’t. Faith can taste that knowledge on his lips.

 ~

Affection minus sex is foreign to Faith though. Without irony, at any rate. She can deal with Dean calling her “sweetheart” and “baby,” because that’s how he refers to just about every woman he meets. And luckily, he pretty much only says her given name if he’s between her thighs or fused with her tongue, mouth and teeth. Much less awkward that way. She’s never really understood long-term desire—whatever it is that inspires all the cheesey love songs on the radio about need and want and come back to me, baby, please. There was that thing with Buffy—that thing she could never even begin to speak—but that was so many other things than just lust; it was like looking in a mirror and seeing everything she could never be. And Angel may be the only person she’s ever really trusted before, but he’s not someone Faith could share her life with—it’s not like that. Yeah, before it was fully _get some, get gone_ because _you can’t trust guys._ But with Dean, Faith thinks, it’s probably more that he shouldn’t trust her. She doesn’t trust herself; she just knows that she wants him, all of the time. And it mysteriously doesn’t get old.

 ~

It was late summer when they met. Now the seasons are coming around again, just like that. Faith sends bi-weekly reports to the Watcher’s Council from pay phones. She’s renegade—everyone’s always known it—but since at least now she’s strictly killing monsters and not people, no one gives her too much shit. Giles actually seems to be intensely interested in Sam and Dean’s fruitless quest for the demon that killed the elder Winchesters, but there’s not much to tell. So apparently Faith’s been given a pass or an extension on training baby slayers in Ohio. Thank god, because there’s a boy in this car who makes her skin sing. And whether she’d realized it ahead of time or not, Faith was craving a totally new way to live—something that’s hers, where she doesn’t feel tied down in any way, yet also not alone.

 ~

This (whatever it is) is pretty much the best thing she’s ever had, and naturally Faith assumes that it won’t last. So she appreciates it in her own way, each and every day. Live in the moment, yeah? That’s the way to go, especially if you’re a vampire slayer with the accompanying as-yet-to-be-determined expiration date. So Faith accepts Dean’s bluster and his pretty boy smile, his worshipping prick and his dumb jokes. And she mockingly loves on Sam and his little brother charm, smarts and wry sense of fun. Maybe if Faith doesn’t tell Dean how she feels about him—that she might kinda sorta rely on him—then this crazy dream can be prolonged. He won’t run off, or die, or go away like all the others did. But she thinks that he ought to know. Dean’s not actually stupid—he just plays it that way for laughs sometimes. Because she may not say as much in words, but Faith’s pretty damn sure that it’s apparent in her eyes, or at least in the way that she touches him when no one else is around.

 ~

Faith’s been to hell and back. Well, maybe not literally, like a few other people she knows, but there are places inside of her that she’d rather forget. But the sex and the laughter and the fighting side-by-side are better than the all the other drugs she’s given up. Maybe this is love. But Faith doesn’t want to jinx it.


	6. Chapter 6: Please Call Me, Baby

 

**Please Call Me, Baby**

_The evening fell just like a star_  
 _Left a trail behind._  
 _You spit as you slammed out the door._  
 _If this is love we're crazy_  
 _As we fight like cats and dogs._  
 _But I just know there's got to be more._

_So please call me, baby._  
 _Wherever you are._  
 _It's too cold to be out walking in the streets._  
 _We do crazy things when we're wounded._  
 _Everyone's a bit insane._  
 _I don't want you catching your death of cold_  
 _Out walking in the rain._

 

Dean’s never fought like this with anyone besides Sam before—not really, or at least not in a way that involves anything more dangerous than guns, knives or his fists. There was Cassie, yes, but even that made more sense than this.

Because that’s how it feels when he and Faith have a blow-out—fucking dangerous, like he might lose his mind, his grip on what’s real. Dean feels like he _knows_ Faith a lot of the time, but there are still pockets of her he doesn’t get: sentences she starts and leaves hanging; dreams she wakes up from shaking, sweaty and scared in a way she never is when she’s awake; and then there are the times he asks her a simple question and she just shoots off a joke and looks away. He knows that trick—uses it all the time—but eventually Dean will crack if it’s with someone he actually cares about (family). But Faith can be like a stone wall. Well, _more_ of a stone wall. It’s funny how you never realize what a pain in the ass you are until you meet your match.

He certainly knows her enough to love her like crazy though, for all of her sharp tongue, complete and utter stubbornness, and absolute refusal to listen to reason at times. Those are actually some of the things about her that he likes the best. Faith makes him hot when she’s being an asshole, and Dean’s not really sure how he feels about that.

~

Generally it goes like this: they argue about something completely stupid—he provokes her or she provokes him, either way, it gets blown out of proportion—Faith freaks out and storms out the door, then Dean punches the wall after she’s gone and slumps into an abyss of beer and waiting for her to call. It gets so still in the room without her, like the air is holding its breath to save her place, just like Dean is.

No, he’s still not really used to this.

Dean was too young when his mother died to have gone all adolescent on her and rebelled. And then after she was gone, there was no room for that—not for him. There was for Sam, but not for Dean.

And with Sam, it’s not exactly the same either—because yeah, Sam could leave him again, but he can’t stop being Dean’s brother.

~

Dean seriously doesn’t even usually know what they’ve been arguing about in the seconds after the door slams. He has, however, started to get the vaguest feeling that these things seem to happen in cycles. Like right after things have been really, really good. That’s a lot of what pisses him off.

Tonight it’s insanely dark outside, and stormy, and they’re in the middle of who-the-hell-knows-where-east-bumfuck. Faith went out in little more than a tank top, her jeans and that tattoo. It’s cold as a witch’s tit, and she’ll be soaked already. And even though ten minutes ago she was making him see red, Dean doesn’t want that. Sure, he knows that she’s seen worse—prison and countless battles and all that (because after two years of watching her fight the way she does, he now believes what she tells him about that stuff)—but this is different. This is his girl out in the wind and the cold, and he can’t seem to figure out what her problem is.

Sam tries to comfort him in his matter-of-fact, logical, Sam kind of way. “She always comes back, man. You know that.” But Dean just scowls and drinks faster, then feels badly, because this isn’t his brother’s fault. Sam just sighs and flips on _Jeopardy_ , mouthing out all of the answers quietly so Dean won’t hear and tell him to shut his trap.

~

The door clicks when she comes back in the middle of the night, and Dean instantly wakes up, grabbing his knife from beneath the pillow and looking out blearily into the dark. But it only takes a few seconds before he realizes that it’s just Faith.

Faith doesn’t say anything, just strips off her dripping wet clothes and climbs over him into bed. Her skin is goose-bumpy and naked and in spite of himself, it calls to Dean. A part of him wants to yell at her some more for freaking him out, and for being a general bitch. But Sam’s sleeping in the other queen-sized bed, and besides now she’s kissing him with ferocious, icy lips. Dean kisses Faith back and tells her how worried and pissed off he was that way.

Maybe next time he’ll be the one who runs off into the night and only comes back when he’s good and ready. But that’s not really all that likely; Dean’s usually the one who waits. He already learned that with Sam.

Fighting demons and ghosts is one thing. Bar fights are another. Those things can, in some ways, be kind of fun. Because fighting with strangers you don’t know doesn’t fucking matter; it’s getting into it with the strangers that you love that truly sucks.


	7. Chapter 7: Faith/Talk Dirty to Me

 

 

  
****Faith/Talk Dirty to Me** **

****Dean says:  
 _You know I never,_  
 _I never seen you look so good._  
 _You never act the way you should._  
 _But I like it._  
 _And I know you like it too._  
 _The way that I want you_  
 _I gotta have you._  
 _Oh yes, I do._

~

Faith says:  
 _Well I guess it would be nice_  
 _If I could touch your body._  
 _I know not everybody_  
 _Has got a body like you._

_But I've got to think twice_  
 _Before I give my heart away._  
 _And I know all the games you play_  
 _Because I play them too._

 

Dean says, “You outta your mind, girl? There are people _right over there_.” Faith bites his earlobe. “I don’t fucking care. I want you. Now.” He swivels his head and looks around. “Alrighty then. Never could say no to a lady.” She smiles and pulls him in by his shirt tails. “I’m not a lady.” Dean bugs his eyes out a bit and tilts his head. “Oh, thank god for that.”

~

Faith says, “We gotta be quick. Check-out’s in half an hour.” Dean grins. “I can handle that. You know I’m your in-and-out man.” She punches him on the shoulder. “You know, you’re a complete dork sometimes, Kansas.” He whistles though his teeth. “Damn girl, be gentle with me.” “No way, man. Not a chance.”

~

Dean says, “Shush, not so loud. Sam’s asleep.” Faith tries really hard, but she’s drunk and keeps forgetting. “Oh oh oh!” “Jesus Christ, Faith, I’m good but I’m not that good. Keep it down.” He’s trying not to laugh, which is also a problem, but as of yet, Sam’s still snoring off his beers. Finally Dean just has to cover her mouth with his hand. Faith bites lightly down, teeth catching on his ring. Then there’s no sound except for the rustling of sheets and Dean’s heavy breathing as he saws his hips, nice and slow. When she comes though her slayer muscles are too much for him, and it’s Dean’s turn to yelp as he spills his load. “You’re a trouble-maker,” he says, lighting her cigarette with his Zippo and falling back on the pillow. “You love it,” Faith sasses back, snuffling into the crook of his neck and letting her eyelids droop. “Maybe so, but _you’re_ not the one getting shit from Sammy about this in the morning.”

~

Faith says, “Tie them tighter. I can still move.” Dean quirks a brow. “What does it matter? We both know you could just break them if you wanted to.” “That’s not the point.” She shifts and gives him a _look_. “Okay, okay. I’m doing my best here.” “I know you are. I’m just…impatient.” He dips in and kisses her. “That’s my girl.”

~

Deans says, “Just say it already or I’m taking my balls and I’m going home.” “We don’t _have_ a home,” Faith points out. He waves his hand over his naked body. “Look, do you want this or not?” She rolls her eyes. “You realize you’re like, _twelve_ , right?” “Say it. Or it’s celibacy for you.” Faith lets out an exaggerated sigh. “Fine, _Dean Winchester has the biggest cock this side of Texas_. Happy now?” "Yes." He flips her over and kisses her messily, pinning Faith down with his weight. “Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” “Seems to be, actually.” Dean snorts, letting out what might well be a giggle, except, you know, obviously not. “Well yeah, I don’t keep company with liars.”

~

Dean says, “Babe, I just want you to ride me tonight.” Faith smirks and swings a leg over. “Lazy ass.” “Something like that,” he mumbles, gripping her hips as she slides down. He looks up at her through wide-open eyes, long eyelashes blinking at a rapid pace. “C’mon, sweetheart, fuck me, yeah like that.” Faith goes to town, doing all the work just like she promised, yelling out, “Fuck. Yes. Oh god. Fuck. Fuck. FUCK.” Dean smiles and leans back, watching her go. After she’s fucked herself off on him twice, he finally lets himself come. Faith leans down to kiss him, sated and still attached and Dean breathes into her hair, “I wanted to look at you. That’s all.”

~

Faith says, “Mitts off, Winchester. I’m on the rag. Leave me alone.” Dean releases her and sighs. “Fine then. I’ll go jerk off. But you should know this is bad for your health. I read somewhere that sex relieves menstrual cramps.” She lets out a howling peal of laughter. “What the fuck? Are you reading Cosmo _and_ watching Oprah now?” “Fuck off, woman. I’ve got some very manly things to do right now.” Faith beckons with a finger. “C’mere a sec?” Dean takes two steps closer. “What?” She pulls his head down to hers and whispers in his ear, “I bought you a new porno mag. It’s in there.” He grins and kisses her. “See, _this_ is why you’re the woman for me.” “You’re a lucky bastard, it’s true.” He turns around before closing the bathroom door. “Yeah, I know.”

~

Dean says, “I love you.” Faith says nothing, but kisses him deeper, pretending she didn’t hear.

 


	8. Chapter 8: Siren

****Siren** **

****_And you know you´re gonna lie to you in your own way._  
 _Know know too well._  
 _Know the chill, know she breaks_  
 _My Siren._  
 _Never was one for a prissy girl._

~

_Call in for an ambulance.  
Reach high, doesn´t mean she’s holy._

~

_Almost brave. Almost pregnant. Almost in love._  
 _And you know you´re gonna lie to you in your own way._

 

The night before Faith pees on a stick she dreams of her grandmother, the one who raised her while her mom was drunk. _You turned into such a slut, girl, just like your mama. Just don’t get knocked up, Faithy, ‘cause I ain’t doing this again._ Sam buys her the test after Faith casually remarks, “I should be gettin’ a visit from Aunt Flow any day now,” and then a week later she still isn’t hogging the bathroom yet. She gives him a stone look until he raises his hands in the air and says, “Chill out, girl. I didn’t tell my brother.” Smart guy—that Sam. Faith holds onto the information for days before impulsively blowing her load completely out of the blue. Dean’s cleaning his guns and singing some Led Zep song to himself when Faith randomly busts out with, “Well, Winchester. Looks like you’re not shooting blanks.” Dean just looks stunned. “I am so royally screwed,” Faith says, standing up and walking out the door.

~

“Didn’t you ever think about it, even a little bit?” he asks in a low tone. Faith turns around fast and lashes out like a whip. “You don’t know the shit I’ve done, Dean. I can’t be somebody’s mother—that’s fucking insane. Look man, just think about the way we met—everything we do now. I was beating on some monster. That’s no life for a kid.” Dean wants to explode. Instead he grinds out, “I spent almost all my time as a kid chasing monsters around with my dad and Sam. You saying I turned out like shit?” Faith turns her head away, mumbles, “You know that’s not what I meant. I’m just sayin’ you don’t know everything about me. If you did, you’d know that this entire thing is just…no fucking way.” “I don’t know you. I don’t _know_ you. That’s fucking rich. I’ve spent almost every freaking day with you for the last few _years_. Fuck you, Faith. Just…fuck you.” “Yeah, you did, and that’s how we got into this bullshit.” This is gearing up to be a complete stalemate. And it’s not even the baby thing that’s got Dean keyed up like this. That’s—whatever—that’s not the point. He’s not entirely sure what the point is, but it’s got everything to do with the way that she’s shutting him out. Like this has absolutely nothing to do with him. They were a team, but now Faith’s just a ball of rage and Dean’s on the other side of the gap, wondering where she went. He wants to say, I’ll take you to the clinic, if that’s what you want. I’ll hold your hand in front of the doctors, tend to your wounds just like every other time I’ve seen you get hurt. But she’d probably laugh at him, and right now it seems like there’s a world of crap going on in her head that he knows nothing about. Again.

~

Faith dreams things that are too real, things that happened before. Her head swarms with kaleidoscopic mindscapes of when she was young. Standing in the school yard by the tetherball court with muddy knees and scraped shins, pushed in the mud by big girls again. Small and angry, but refusing to cry. The first time Faith fought back with all her might, she ended up with a black eye and a three-day suspension. And when she got home, her mom was red-faced, yelling again, like it was all Faith’s fault. Everything. She wakes up and runs to the bathroom, barely making it to the toilet before she starts retching up deep, hiccupping mouthfuls of bile, and Faith’s not sure if it’s because of the parasite in her womb or her mother resurrected from the dead in her brain. She crawls back into bed, shaking and unable to make any kind of contact with Dean, who seems to sleep on. Maybe he heard her. She’s not sure, but he knows that she hates being sick, hates anyone else seeing her weak. Faith’ll let him bandage up her cuts and bruises, because those are battle wounds and she’d do the same for him, but if she’s even got a cold, she suffers in silence and he pretends he doesn’t notice. Because he loves her. That’s the most terrible part about all of this. Because no matter what happens, nothing will ever be the same. He’d be an awesome dad—just look how Sam turned out—and even though Dean hasn’t once said out loud that he wants this…thing, Faith’s pretty sure that she’s the problem in the situation.

~

It’s not like Dean wanted this, any of this. In fact, pretty much everything about it sucks. But he still thinks about what it would look like, be like. Maybe he wouldn’t think about it as much if she’d just talk to him. He wishes he could say, let’s do this, let’s fucking do this, we aren’t the _worst_ people in the world and besides there’s always Sam; _he_ ’d be a good influence. Or it’s cool, babe, we’ll take care of it and it’ll be over, you’ll see. Pretty much just any sentence that would include the word “we.” Faith doesn’t let him go with her to the clinic. She sneaks out early and takes the bus. Dean wears holes in the carpet pacing the whole time she’s gone. Sam’s mostly quiet after he tries to talk to Dean and fails. He clears his throat every few minutes, but Dean doesn’t meet his brother’s eyes. He can’t. Faith comes back hours after it’s gotten dark, with bloody hands and streaks down her face. Dean runs to her, finally able to fully freak out. “What the hell happened? What did they do to you? Are you okay, baby, are you okay? Should I take you to the hospital?” Questions spill out of his mouth like water, but Faith doesn’t answer any of them, just looks at the ceiling and raises her hands up, bleeding and torn. “It’s your fault, Dean. I couldn’t freakin' do it, damn you. So I did this instead.” He grabs her tightly around the waist, lets her smear blood on his shirt, and hopes that there’s some way in hell that this can end up okay.

~

They still don’t talk about it much, make no real plans, but Faith quits smoking, and Dean orders more food than he needs at every truck stop diner and slides it in front of her place. It doesn’t seem real to her—almost nothing does. At night she has inexplicable nightmares riddled with the first Watcher—the one that Faith liked—dark grey film reels swimming with her lifeless face, and during the day Faith starts having waking visions of a child speaking soundlessly with Dean’s lips.

~

He tells himself that she’ll get over it. She has to—Faith’s the toughest girl Dean’s ever met. If she can handle all the other shit they deal with every day, she can do this too. He just has to convince her, and since she won’t listen to words, he’ll kiss her and fuck her until she gets it—that’s what has always worked before. Faith’s still his girl, got his baby in her belly and everything. It’s all gonna be okay.


	9. Chapter 9: Nothing Else Matters

**Nothing Else Matters**  
  
 _So close, no matter how far._  
 _Couldn't be much more from the heart._  
 _Forever trusting who we are_  
 _and nothing else matters._  
  
 _Never opened myself this way._  
 _Life is ours, we live it our way._  
 _All these words I don't just say_  
 _and nothing else matters._  
  
 _Trust I seek and I find in you._  
 _Every day for us something new._  
 _Open mind for a different view_  
 _and nothing else matters._

 

The day Jan is born isn’t the _most_ surreal of Sam’s life, but it’s pretty damn close. When Faith checks into the hospital, Sam has to pretend to be the baby’s father, because, you know, Dean’s _legally dead_. The fun part about that is that it completely drives Dean crazy, and the gross part is because even though Faith’s been acting like a stone bitch for most of her pregnancy, she still feels kind of like Sam’s sister, not just his friend.

~

“You realize, dude, that it’s a little late for you guys not to have decided what to call her,” Sam says to Dean as they make their way to the dining hall for some shit coffee. It’s four AM and Faith’s almost fully dilated and has been yelling like a banshee for hours now—her voice echoing so loud it can be heard down the corridor easy. Caffeine is necessary in the hopes of remaining sane. “Yeah, well, the matter’s still up for debate. See, I think we should name her Janis for Janis Joplin, and Faith, well, she kind of refuses to have an opinion…for the first time, like _ever_.” Storm clouds roll over Dean’s face until Sam does his best to distract him. “Still with the Janis? Dean, that name’s ugly as sin.” Dean brightens. “Shut it, Sammy. First of all, this isn’t your kid. And secondly, she’s _my_ kid so she’s definitely going to _rock_. Therefore, she should have a name that fits.” “Okay, whatever, dude, but I’m not calling her that. I’ll call her ‘Jan’ instead, because, you know, it sounds like Sam.” Sam’s hoping that the teasing will work like it ought to and make his brother grin. It does, a little. Not enough.

~

Sam and Dean are standing on cold linoleum staring in at a sea of cribs; it looks like a natural history museum, or an aquarium or some shit. Dean points to the far right and says, “See, she’s that one over there. That’s Janis. That’s my little girl.” Sam says nothing and stares down at his brother’s rapt face. He’s never seen Dean look like that, not ever. He shifts his gaze over in the direction of Dean’s outstretched arm and squints at a tiny, white bundle containing a squalling, red-faced, little blob. “She’s fucking perfect, man. Perfect,” Dean murmurs, and that’s when Sam realizes even more than he already did that nothing—nothing—is ever going to be the same.

~

“Mr. Winchester, sir, I—I don’t know how to tell you this, but your wife—she’s _gone_.” “What?” Sam feels his head begin to spin. He starts to stutter, “Look, she’s not my—oh, nevermind. What did you say?” The short, blonde nurse looks like she wants to take off running down the hall. But instead she just lowers her head and repeats, “She’s gone. Ms. Lehane is missing from her room. We’ve looked, I assure you, but we can’t find her anywhere. We were just getting ready to call the police, but we figured we should check in with you first.” And in that moment, Sam feels his heart drop like a shit ton of bricks, deep into the pit of his stomach, which is doing acrobatic flips now, because how—just _how_ in the love of God—is he going to tell this to Dean?

~

Sam takes the stairs three at a time, running to find Dean. When he gets to the room, half out of breath, Dean’s sitting by the side of the empty bed with his head in his hands. “She left a note, dude. She left a motherfucking note.” Sam takes the scrap of paper from Dean’s trembling hand and scans quickly over Faith’s disastrous scrawl:

_Dean,_

_I’m a fuck-up and I always have been._

_I guess I just started to forget or something._

_I_ _have no excuse for myself—nothing that you’d get. You guys don’t need me. Anyway. I love you._

_I really do, and I’m sorry I never said that before now and for everything else._

_Maybe it doesn’t matter for anything, but it’s the god’s honest truth._

_-Faith._

~

“You drive, Sam, I’m busy,” Dean says, staring down at the tiny, little human cradled in the sleeves of his leather jacket. He tosses the car keys to Sam and then says, “Hey man, can you hold her for a second? I’ve gotta run back and get the rest of the stuff.” Sam nods quietly and holds out his arms. Dean takes two steps forward and then turns back to worriedly exclaim, “You’re holding her head up, right? You’ve got to do that. She can’t do it herself yet.” Sam rolls his eyes and says, “Yes, Dean, of course. Do you think I’m an idiot?” Dean flips his middle finger firmly up before trudging off again, waving his arms and grumbling, “I’m the one who read the book, man. I was the only one who did.” Sam sighs heavily and looks down at Janis—Jan—and wonders how something so small could turn the axis of the world on its head. He looks up again when Dean comes running back again to shout out, “You fuckin’ drop her and I’m gonna beat your ass.” Sam wants to put his hand on Dean’s shoulder, but he can’t, so instead he just meets his brother’s eyes and says quietly, “Calm down, man. We’re cool here, all right?” When Dean gets back, Sam hands the baby back to him and hops in the driver’s seat, making sure the radio’s turned off before he turns the key in the ignition. The whole ride home, neither of them speak, and Dean just stares down at Jan, humming inappropriate Metallica songs minus the lyrics under his breath. It’s a good thing that his name is the one on the lease, Sam thinks. He should have known something like this was going to happen when Faith said tiredly, “It should be you, Sammy. I don’t have any credit. They won’t rent to me.” This is the first time that Sam’s had a real home since Palo Alto, he realizes, but then his thoughts drift. He’ll fucking kill Faith if he ever sees her traitorous ass again. Because all kids should have mothers, in his opinion. And what the fuck—is _he_ supposed to fill that role? Sam doesn’t know what to do; it’s not like he ever had one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dean and I were wavering between naming the kid either for Janis Joplin or Joan Jett, but [musesfool](http://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/pseuds/victoria_p) tipped the balance when she suggested “Jan”—just wanted to give her credit for that.


	10. Chapter 10:Evening on the Ground

**Evening on the Ground**

_We were born to fuck each other_  
 _One way or another._  
 _But I'll only lie_  
 _Down by the waterside at night._

_Hey man,_  
 _Tiny baby tears_  
 _I will collect a million years._  
 _And you can_  
 _Blame me._

_Blame me, I will wear it_  
 _In the empty, hollow part of my_  
 _Garden._

  
  
There is ocean here too. But the rocks and crags and cliffs are not like California, where they first met. The water is frigid though, like the icy salt that made Dean’s dick grow smaller to his anger and her amusement. He wanted to make a good impression apparently. But the heat he gave her later was more than enough to impress her. It really was.

Faith slips her toes in, howling into the night air, because it’s the anniversary of the day that her body gave birth to what she could not hold close. Her hips are still slim—not childbearing—never meant to be fruitful or fecund. That was Dean’s doing. He was the seed in the garden. Faith’s the one who couldn’t share the dream. The Fuck Up. Still.

Faith stares out into the dark and the water and the wet and tries not to remember, tries not to think about the fact that there is a little girl out there who might wear traces of her face, and a boy-turned-man who invades her dreams still. A man who was loyal and true—if immature and crass on the surface—and everything she is not, everything she couldn’t be.

She wakes with night sweats and misty memories of laughter and fucking that rocked her like it never had before. How she let him cover her with slow, openmouthed kisses that pitched her onto a rollercoaster ride—thrilling and out of control, messy and sweet. It was the future she could not handle, but with a past like hers, it’s no wonder that Faith couldn’t find family in him when he offered it up.

Dean must hate her now though. (Faith doesn’t blame him. She’ll take that for herself.) So there is no going back. Yet still she always knows where they are. The council resources make that possible, and Willow is a willing confidant. She does not judge. But then she too has tasted the dark, and the once-evil have to have sympathy for one another because who else will?

Faith is not a teacher, not a leader, not like Buffy. Buffy, who has a home here, and a pet vampire who attends to her slayer kinks. The kinks she would not share with Faith, not the way Faith once wanted. (The kinks he made familiar and safe.)

Faith is a slayer—that is what she is. To the core. And so she goes on every away mission available. To the ends of the earth—the places that were just pinpoints on a map when she was little and failing geography in the Boston public school system. Yeah, Faith finds physical joy in her work, in the blood and sweat that make her feel alive.

She finds lovers who are nothing like him. Girls who snap their gum and offer up their pussies, pretty and pink. Boys with fragile illusions about her that she dashes quick. Civilians always. No more office romances. And she drinks and dances herself breathless, like she is seventeen.

But none of these midnight assignations fit like Dean did. Because she does not want that. Does not _want_ to feel secure with these people she meets at the crossroads of lust and mystery. That was a mistake. A beautiful, fucked-up mistake that she will always hold close like a secret.

Faith tells herself that it is better this way. This is a Truth. She tells herself that the child she will not know carries the parts of her that she could not give to _him_. She whispers on repeat that Dean and Sam will make it all right in her absence. Because for all of their pain, they know about Family. She has faith in that.

The current is strong, but it cannot carry her away. Faith swims unattended, feeling her muscles strong and flexible against this weight. And when she finally lays herself down, cold and wet, back cradled by the shoreline with her head pillowed in the sand, the world is quiet.  
  
Faith lives with the choices she has made. Because she may not be tough enough to be someone’s mother, but she is strong enough to carry on.


	11. Chapter 11: I Ain't Scared of Lightning

**I Ain't Scared of Lightning**

_Come on and do your worst._  
 _If they gave degrees_  
 _For cheating destiny_  
 _Then man_  
 _I got a first._

_No I ain't scared of lightning._  
 _It's the same old empty threat._  
 _I've been standing proud_  
 _Beneath the gathering cloud._  
 _And man_  
 _I ain't dead yet._

 

It all works out pretty much okay. Sam goes to night school to finish his degree. Dean gets a job at a garage, where the other guys are pretty chill, the pay is decent, and the owner doesn’t seem fazed by the gaps in Dean’s paperwork. And everyone always thinks they’re gay.

Jan, unsurprisingly, is the apple of Dean’s eye. In his opinion, she is the most amazing baby that’s ever happened in the history of babies (not that he had much of a basis of comparison until now, besides Sam of course). And after the night she turns six months old and he stays up all night, sitting in a rocking chair with the Colt stretched across his lap, hopped up on No-doze and adrenaline, they begin to worry less about the Demon. At least not every single minute of every day.

Because Jan is just a little kid, normal in every way.

There always seem to be creepy crawlies acting up in the area—on occasion Dean thinks that maybe it’s kind of wack that he chooses to raise his girl somewhere with so much supernatural activity. But then it’s what his own dad did, and he never leaves Jan alone or anything like that. Besides, this is what Dean _does_. Plus, he knows better than most anyone else that it’s not really safe anywhere.

Dean is obsessive about his work, both the hunting when he can get away, and also at the shop. His fingernails are always imbedded with grease no matter how much he tries to wash it away. His boss keeps saying, “Winchester, find yourself a woman, you don’t have to butter me up this much. Not gonna fire my best guy.” But Dean just smiles wryly and says, “Only one woman in my life, man, and she’s less than three feet tall.”

That’s not entirely true though—Dean does goes out sometimes, picks up a random barfly and takes her to a motel. It’s sort of like the old days, except that Sam’s at home on those nights, doing his homework and watching teletubbies with Jan.  
  
Dean doesn’t remember the name of the first girl he fucked after Faith went away. She was the blondest one he could find—tall, voluptuous, all tits and ass; he’d thought he was safe. But turned out she used the same soap as Faith had, and Dean got flashes of Faith’s “O” face the whole time he ate her out. He performed adequately; Dean was pretty sure of that—just gritted his teeth and concentrated really hard on getting off when the time came. Once the chick walked out the door though, wearing an outfit that to his less-drunk eyes seemed way too tight in the wrong way, Dean fell back on the coverlet and let a few exhausted tears run down his face. After that slip though Dean got his shit together, and remembered that sex is just supposed to be a recreational activity, not something you let yourself take too seriously.

His favorite word used to be “fuck,” now it’s “Daddy.” Before Jan learned to talk, it was something of a competition between Dean and Sam as to whose name she’d say first. To Sam, it was a joke, but when his brother took off for class, Dean would repeat it over and over to a wide-eyed Jan, emphasizing the “D” sound as she gurgled in her high chair. The first recognizable thing she uttered did end up being “Da-da,” the second was “no,” and the third was “Sam.”

If Dean had known back in the day that kids were chick magnets, he’d have taken up babysitting. He thinks it’s pretty weird actually, how just hauling his daughter around at the grocery increases the proportion of females checking out his ass. ‘Cause usually, when there’s a tyke in tow, someone else is attached, right? Dean makes a point of avoiding any woman who makes eyes at him when he’s out somewhere with Jan. No big loss, there are plenty others to be had. He does, however, point out these advantages to Sam when he needs to work a double-shift and someone’s got to pick her up from daycare in the afternoon.

They make friends here, guys to play pool with and _not_ take their money. Married dudes who understand about having to check in at home, guys with wives who look at Dean with appreciative yet sympathetic eyes. Sam pals around with kids from the university, but Dean doesn’t really find much of what they say all that interesting and he’s pretty sure they don’t understand a fucking word he says. It’s cool though, because Sam seems pretty content and the two of them still spend most of their time together anyway—there’s just too much shit that other people wouldn’t understand.

Dean fires a lot of babysitters early on before he finally settles on Greg. Greg is some guy that Sam knows from his part-time job at the local bookstore. He’s quiet and kind of strangely tidy-looking and at first Dean says to Sam, “Since when are dudes babysitters?” in response to which Sam just gapes. Jan loves the guy though (but not _too_ much) and Greg does stuff like starts teaching her to read early, which she’s apparently really good at for her age.

Because, you see, Dean doesn’t trust most of the high school girls that come cheap. They’ll probably just bring their boyfriends over and fool around on the couch—Dean remembers all about that. Besides they might fill his little girl’s head with weird crap. Like the one who freaked out about the fact that Jan doesn’t own a single doll. The hell? It’s not like Dean deprives her—in fact, Sam’s always reminding him that they can’t actually afford to buy her _every_ lego set for her age range and also replenish their supply of hunting gear. But when Jan tugs on his pant leg and looks up at him with solemn brown eyes, Dean can’t seem to stop himself from giving her whatever it is that she wants.

Time moves differently now that Jan’s around. For one thing, she grows out of her clothes at an insane rate. But the doctor assures them that she’s not actually a freak, just a healthy, growing girl who’s likely to end up tall. Before Dean knows it it’s almost Jan’s fourth birthday, which kind of makes him feel a little old, even though Sam’s the one who’s started going prematurely grey. Which apparently some girls are into, since Sam seems to do okay that way. After graduation, Sammy starts working at the library, which is infinitely amusing to Dean, but he has to admire how the whole “sheepish, nerdy guy” thing gets his little brother laid. To each their own, man.

So yeah, things are pretty much okay—nothing like how Dean would have expected his life to end up, but then he never really gave all that much thought to the future before.

Now he does.


	12. Chapter 12: Breathe Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Opening dialogue taken from AtS, 4.15, “Orpheus.”

**Breathe Me**

_Help, I have done it again._  
 _I have been here many times before._  
 _I hurt myself again today._  
 _And, the worst part is there's no one else to blame._

_Be my friend._  
 _Hold me, wrap me up._  
 _Unfold me._  
 _I am small._  
 _I'm needy._

 

_“Angel, I'm dying.”_

_“Yeah. It's a lot easier than redemption, huh?”_

~

When Faith stumbles in, lugging her ever-present duffel, she immediately feels out of place. This isn’t what she expected at all.

Angel seems bizarrely cheerful for him, lording over the head of the table as he watches Connor eat. He’s drinking blood from a mug and listening avidly to Connor’s stories about life at Oxford as Connor stuffs his still-skinny frame with pounds of lasagna and salad and bread. Faith’s entrance interrupts all of that. Angel and Connor look up at her with twin turns of the head.

“Uh, sorry,” she mumbles, on the verge of walking out of this Norman Rockwell painting—the undead version. It’s just so fucking strange, seeing Angel like this—a contented patriarch. Faith definitely feels like the wayward child come home. “Guess I’ll just throw this…in the lobby or something. Don’t wanna interrupt.” Her eyelid starts twitching for no apparent reason.

But Angel gets up to greet her before she can flee. “It’s okay, Faith. We were just finishing up. Right?” He looks back at Connor fondly.

Connor nods and chokes briefly on a mouthful of bread before saying, “Yeah, plus I’ve gotta run if I’m going to catch up with Lisa and Greg. I haven’t seen them since Stanford.” Huh. So, the feral boy she met all those years ago has turned tame—he’s got _friends_.

“Be careful,” Angel calls over his shoulder as Connor throws on his jacket and waltzes towards the door. Connor grins and mock-salutes, rolling his eyes.

Angel watches until his son is completely out of frame, then swirls around and claps his hands together, asking, “So Faith, want something to drink?”

“Yeah,” she says instinctively, and then softer, “That’d help.”

~

Angel guides Faith to the most well-appointed part of the Hyperion: his suite. It’s pretty surreal, mostly in the way that Angel’s life seems so _normal_ to Faith—a two-hundred-year-old-plus vampire who’s survived hell and multiple apocalypses shouldn’t have a domestic life. It’s just weird, man. And also, this all makes Faith feel cheated out of one companion in misery. And that makes her feel like shit. Because it’s not like she _wants_ Angel to be unhappy—she knows that being reunited with his son is a dream come true for him. But it’s still…lonely.

“It’s good to see you, Faith, but ah, you didn’t say why you’re here. Is something up that I oughta know about? Something you guys couldn’t say on the phone? Did Giles send you?”

Faith chokes on her beer, a Budweiser that she’s fairly sure Angel got specially in anticipation of her arrival. Angel’s not really the type for cheap brew; he’s having scotch. Faith’s drinking too fast—nerves. She wipes the back of her hand over her mouth and shakes her head. “Nope. No disasters. Just me. Sorry to disappoint.” It’s so easy—slipping into sarcasm, like reflex.

Angel’s staring at her with concerned eyes; that certainly doesn’t help. “I’m not disappointed. Just curious. You’re not exactly big with the social visits most of the time.”

Faith begins to pick at the label on her bottle, looking down. “Yeah, well, I—” She stops, lowers her voice, “I guess I just wanted to see a friend, ya know?”

Angel visibly relaxes, sitting back in his chair. “I’m glad you think of me that way,” he says, still studying her. Faith continues glugging at her beer, finishing it quickly, and by the time she’s done Angel’s already appeared with another. He’s so gracious it makes her feel uncomfortable. He politely asks her about everyone back “home” and she answers in short, staccato sentences: “Buffy’s fine. Yeah, Spike too. Willow has a new girlfriend—way too young. Xander and Dawn, who’d a thunk it? I’m fine. Lots of work. Been away a lot.” And the whole while Angel keeps looking at her in that placid, inspecting way that he has sometimes, the one that’s always made it so much harder to hide anything from him. Other people are easily duped.

Faith doesn’t tell him about her sleepless nights, the ache in her heart that _still_ won’t go away, or her catalogue of regrets, but she thinks that he can sense it all. Angel’s always been able to pick up on that kind of shit.

When she’s run out of small talk and so has he—neither of them are good at this—Faith begins to fidget manically, picking at the seams of her jeans and jostling her foot, until finally she just comes out with it, surprising herself. “Angel?”

“Yeah?” he says, in a gentle tone that sounds like the beginning of a whole new conversation.

“You know there was a guy, right?”

Angel nods. “The demon hunter with the brother? The one you wouldn’t bring home to meet the folks.” He smiles slightly at his own lame joke. He always does that. It’s corny. But Faith likes that about him.

“Yeah, that’s the one.” Faith barrels on, hardly stopping for breath. It’s compulsive—something about Angel makes her want to confess all her sins; she’s still testing him perhaps, to see if he’ll finally get it—that she really is beyond help. “I—we—I had a baby. It was—it was an accident. So fucked up. I just _left_. Couldn’t help it. Woke up in the hospital and knew I couldn’t hack it. No way, no how. And Dean was so _good_ …”

She looks up tentatively and Angel’s gazing at her like he cares. It’s so wrong. (Even though that’s exactly why she’s here.) “I mean, so he did have a tendency to lie, and well, steal actually, and sometimes cheat—not on me I mean, but at cards and stuff like that. But—but he _loved_ me. God, he must have been on drugs.” She lets her head fall in her hands.

“Why are you telling me this now?” Angel sounds so calm. Faith wants to scream.

“I don’t know!” she explodes, then falls silent, her head reeling. She can hear each tick of the wall clock, because Angel just sits and waits for her patiently, not scolding out loud, not reproving. Eventually, he wins the test of wills and Faith finishes lamely, “It’s just—it’s just been so long. Guess I just wanted _someone_ to know.” She lowers her voice to a throaty whisper again. “Someone who’d get it.”

Faith’s almost convinced herself of this by the time she’s finished saying it. But deep down she’s still pissed that Angel refuses to punish her—that she can’t get that from Dean either, not without going back anyway.

Angel clinks the ice in his glass, pulls no punches. “I already knew. Could smell it on you—the last time.”

Faith’s mind flashes back to the days after she fled, running straight from the birthing center to LA. Angel never asked her then what was wrong, just tended the wounds she’d thought no one could see. He was her oasis then—a few days rest until she made her way back to England where at least there was a readymade purpose.

Faith shakes her head, trying to dislodge those terrible, delirious days and looks up at Angel with stricken eyes. “I—you—what?” She smacks her head with the flat of her palm and out of her mouth comes, “Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuck. If _you_ know, then maybe Spike knows too. And if Spike knows then Buffy… Oh my god, they all must be feelin’ all _sorry_ for me and shit.” She says this like it’s the worst thing that could possibly happen—being pitied—and it used to be, before she lost Dean. Lost him. That makes it sound like he was a pen or a hair elastic, not a person she cared about.

Faith could swear Angel’s psychic sometimes, because the next thing that he says is, “Did you love him?”

She sits rock still for a minute, wordless, then figures she’s got nothing to lose. Well, that’s kind of a given. “Yeah. Yes, I did.”

“So that’s what you gave up?” Funny how she never phrases it that way in her head.

“I guess so.” Faith pauses, then bursts again. “I’ve done so many fucked up things. Wicked bad things. You know more about it than pretty much anybody else. So why? Tell me why the hell this feels just as bad as all the rest?”

Angel’s quiet for a bit, thinking before he speaks. Finally he says, “Because this one you did to yourself.”

 _“You’re_ one to give advice,” she says, wanting to cut him for being right.

“Yeah well, considering that I’ve got over two centuries on you, I’d say so, yes.”

She smiles then, crookedly, because it’s an assload better than crying.

Angel walks over to her then, leaning over and touching her shoulder with his hand. Faith shudders but doesn’t look up. Doesn’t push him away either. “It’s never too late, Faith. We have to believe that.”

Faith hears his words, but they drop down inside her, disappearing like a penny in a wishing well.

“It is for me. Maybe not about everything, but it is about this."


	13. Chapter 13: Stolen Car

**Stolen Car**

_You walked into my house last night._  
 _I couldn’t help but notice_  
 _A light that was long gone still burning strong._  
 _You were sitting,_  
 _Your fingers like fuses._  
 _Your eyes were cinnamon._

_You said you stand for every known abuse_  
 _That was ever threatened to anyone but you._  
 _And why should I know better by now_  
 _When I’m old enough not to?_

 

There’s nothing like fulfilling a lifelong goal to make a man honest. Well, that and whiskey. And a beer or three or four. Dean and Faith have a bottle between them now, instead of a continent, but the gap between them is crackling through the air.

The funny part is that they fought together better tonight than they ever had before, more in synch, hardly even having to speak. Demon’s finally gone, shot through the heart with the old Colt by Sam, with Faith and Dean pinning it down. Sam used his mind to bring the gun right up to the thing’s chest—no fucking around this time, only having one bullet left and all.

But if Dean were a man for metaphors, he’d say that there’s a fuckload of ghosts haunting this room. Yeah, the Demon may finally be over and done with, but the secrets it let out are still in play.

Dean plays back the way that son of a bitch went after Faith with taunts, the whole thing rewinding over and over like a skipping record in his head…

  _“Murderer. Trash. Piece of meat. Your momma never wanted you either, Faith, that’s why she used you as an ashtray. The neighborhood boys too—they knew what you were, the way you were meant to be used.”_

But Faith was unswayed, lashing out with words as well as her fists and blade.

_“You think this psych-out mumbo jumbo’s gonna work on me, you bastard? Badder things than you could ever hope to be already pulled this whole 'remind Faithy about her crap childhood' thing to try an’ throw me off my game. Lemme tell ya, I know my sins better than you ever could, motherfucker. Don’t need a friggin’ refresher course, so just shut the fuck up and prepare to die.”_

She was eerily, deadly calm then, but now Faith’s face is a completely deadened mask as she drinks straight from the bottle, not looking Dean’s way. “You _would_ pick the only rural hellmouth I’ve ever heard of as place to settle down.”

Dean doesn’t entirely know what she’s talking about, but he can’t concentrate on that right now, so he busts out with a loaded non sequitur instead. “I know you never wanted her,” he says, because he can’t think about anything else. Faith doesn’t immediately respond so he rubs the flat of his palm against his woozy forehead and goes on. “You _said_ you didn’t, more than once. So the thing I’ve spent the last four years trying to figure out is why the fuck you even went through with it at all.”

She still won’t look at him.

Dean opens his wallet, fumbles drunkenly through his billfold and tosses a crumpled snapshot into her lap. “There she is, Faith. She’s fucking beautiful,” he says meanly, even though he hadn’t planned it to come out that way.

Faith holds it up to the light in shaking hands, eyes wide like a scared animal. She takes a long look, various expressions mutating over her features before she stands up and starts pacing, Jan’s department store image fluttering to the ground. After a few tense minutes of that, she spins and stares Dean down, her voice cracked and sullen. “Cat’s outta the bag now, so I might as well just tell you it all.” But then for long seconds after she says nothing and Dean finds himself holding his breath, not knowing what he’s waiting for, just that he has been for what seems like forever. Faith looks up at the ceiling and then finally back down at Dean, eyes burning. “Jesus H. Christ, Dean. Wanna know exactly how many men I killed? Do you?” she snarls.

Dean becomes completely still—every muscle, every nerve on edge, even through the boozy haze.

Faith goes back to the infuriating pacing. “Yeah, you didn’t know that ‘till now, did ya? It was three, by the way, and only the first one was on accident; the others I was gettin’ _paid_. I guess maybe I figured you can come back from that kind of shit as a warrior, but not as a friggin’ _mother_. Hell, Murder Two, twenty-five to life, that’s where I really oughta be, if it wasn’t for the Council.” She’s picking up steam now in her tirade, taking heaving breaths to keep going. “I swore I was down for this whole redemption dealie, been paying my dues killing evil things for years. But it’s never gonna be over. Never.” She stops abruptly, piercing him with a look. “So tell me now, Dean. Now tell me you’re not glad I stayed away.”

Dean opens his mouth to talk, but nothing comes out. But Faith’s still on a roll anyway.

“Wanna know how? How I watched them bleed? How I tortured people who were just trying to help me?”

“Think I already know all about _that_ , actually,” he says under his breath, but she hears him—he can tell by the stricken look on her face.

Faith yelling and going off like this is familiar; it’s the next thing she says that cuts him like a dirty kitchen knife. “Funny thing, ain’t it? How that hell spawn couldn’t get a rise outta me, but you still can, just by existing.”

“Faith,” he says, finding his wits enough to rush up and grab her by the arm, stop her before she internally combusts. “I already knew what you were in there for.” What he doesn’t say is: _But I should have known about all the rest from the way you woke up shaking at night..._

“What?” And just like that, she turns from a mounting hurricane into just a girl—a woman—wounded and real.

“You think I didn’t get nerd boy to look you up? I was waiting for _you_ to tell me, but you never did. And then you just fucking took off.”

“Oh.” Her eyes are huge in their sockets, and Dean drops Faith’s arm and looks down at the floor to avoid getting lost in their swirling brown depths.

“You’re not as good at keeping secrets as you think you are, Lehane. In three years you dropped a hell of a lot of hints. And I learned the hard way that on the front lines, nobody’s clean. Come on now, I’m not as fucking stupid as you take me for.” Dean stops to taste his own anger for a second before raising his voice. “Hell, we both had a hand in offing the poor sucker possessed by the Demon today.” Dean’s full on hollering now himself, and it’s giving him a headache. So he opts for clenching his hands into fists over and over again instead.

They stand silently across the room from each other—with cubic feet of air, too many years, and a seemingly insurmountable amount of emotional wreckage scattered on the floor between them. Faith’s sudden presence is making his home seem treacherous—not his own. This is where Dean and Sam watch Nascar on TV and argue about whose turn it is to do the dishes. Where they spent countless hours on the computer and the phone searching for stray hints about the Demon. Their big family curse that in the end Faith found for them because she’s in with the White Hat mafia. How much sooner would all of this have been over if she hadn’t run off the way she did? (If he'd loved her enough to make her stay.)

This is also where Jan took her first steps. Where he taught her how to tie her shoelaces. Dean thanks god she’s safely away from here, and not just because of the danger but also because if he saw the two of them in the same room right now he might freak the fuck out, drunk and depleted as he is. Sam’s with her now—that’s good.

Faith’s still not saying anything, just staring at him in way that makes it impossible not to just come right out with it and cry out, “Why couldn’t you just trust me, Faith? Why?”  
  
“I did it for you, I think,” she replies, finally answering his almost-forgotten question. “Maybe that doesn’t make any sense. It didn't really then, dunno why it should now. And I did trust you. My problem was—my problem was with _me_. Can't you get that, Dean?”

Dean takes a good long look at Faith. She’s all angles, pared down to wiry muscle and dark eyes, looking just tough as she always has been, yet also more fragile than he’s ever seen her. “You’re so fucked in the head, Faith. You’re so fucked up,” he says, and yet weirdly, in his head it sounds like, "I love you."

“I know,” she says simply. “Maybe I thought things could be different. Maybe I was wrong. But I can’t take any of it back now, so what’s the point?”

There’s nothing to say to that, so Dean kisses her, brutally, pushing Faith up against the wall, lifting her up so they're pelvis to pelvis as his body impacts with hers, and a wave of frustrated, pissed-off desire courses through him as he runs his fingers through the unruly mass of her hair, his whole body singing with the relief of _not being dead_. His tongue finds inexplicable ways to speak with hers without the clumsiness of words—Dean thinks she’s listening but still he mumbles out loud, “You drive me crazy, you always did.” He can't believe any of this is real, because the next thing he knows, Dean's nailing the mother of his child up again his living room wall, and she's pushing out breathy encouragement all the while, even though she missed it. She missed it all.

They fuck in a way they never did when they were together, desperate, like it’ll never happen again, like there isn’t enough time. Because Dean’s a dumb ass about Faith still—in spite of the pulse of his still-broken heart, he still wants her, and he’s too drunk and too overwhelmed to rein that in.

~

The day breaks white and bleary, sun streaming through the window onto Faith’s face. Her head aches and her muscles are killing her. And here she is, in Dean’s bed, naked and bruised and four years older.

Faith looks around and finds herself alone. This bright sun and plaid, flannel sheets vision of normal might as well be the twilight zone. Before she can get her bearings, a tiny, dark-haired whirlwind bursts though the door and jumps onto the bed next to Faith, who covers herself up the best she can and stares.

“Who are you?”

“I—I’m Faith,” is all Faith can get to come out of her mouth before Dean comes barreling in barefoot and bathrobe-clad, picking up the kid and tossing her over his shoulder.

“She’s Daddy’s friend, baby, and she’s not feeling so good so let’s leave her alone. C’mon, we’ll get you something to eat.” Dean looks back over his shoulder with an unreadable expression as he carries the wriggling, living, little _person_ out in his arms. Faith is left paralyzed, feeling even more naked than before.

Seeing is believing, that’s for sure. Because last night he was burning, pulsing—her man again for a limited time only—and now Dean belongs to another girl.

She manages to reacquire her clothes from the bedroom floor before Dean comes back, face solemn, his hands in his pockets and barely looking at her.

“Um, does she—?” Faith says, using all of her courage to look up and let her question hang in the air. Killing demons is definitely easier than this.

“Jan’s mother is dead,” he says softly, scrubbing the hardwood floor with his toes. “I didn’t expect them to get back until later and I don’t bring chicks home so…look, don’t worry about it. This isn’t your problem.” This all comes out more tired than straight-up bitter and Faith’s trying not to think, _Where do you take them then?_

“Jan,” she tastes the word in her mouth. “So you really went with that…”

Dean interrupts her, “Yeah, look. Faith, you’ve got to go. I—” And then he falls down on the bed, sitting down and looking at her with bloodshot eyes. Faith doesn’t know what to say, so she waits for him.

He just spits it out, still braver than her. “I’m still a fucking idiot when it comes to you—but the thing is, I’m somebody’s father now. Everything’s different. I won’t confuse her, and I won’t let you.” His tone is firm but not cruel.

“I know,” she says, touching his stubble with her palm. Dean takes her hand and places it gently back in her lap, letting his fingers linger a minute, then releasing.

“You saved our asses, showing up when you did. And that’s something. But I’ve got no clue what to say to you about anything else. Last night...”

“I’ll wait,” she says, cutting him off and standing up on trembling legs.

“All right,” Dean says dazedly, "okay," and settles his head in his hands, scrunching his hair up like he always does when he’s nervous.

Some things don’t change. Like the fact that she’s still always the one walking out the door.


	14. Chapter 14: A Case of You

**A Case of You**

_Oh you are in my blood like holy wine._  
 _And you taste so bitter but you taste so sweet._  
 _Oh I could drink a case of you._  
 _I could drink a case of you darling_  
 _Still I’d be on my feet._  
 _And still be on my feet._

_I met a woman._  
 _She had a mouth like yours._  
 _She knew your life._  
 _She knew your devils and your deeds._  
 _And she said_  
 _Color go to him, stay with him if you can._  
 _Oh but be prepared to bleed._  
 _Oh but you are in my blood you're my holy wine._  
 _Oh and you taste so bitter, bitter and so sweet._  
 _Oh I could drink a case of you darling_  
 _Still I’d be on my feet._  
 _I’d still be on my feet._

 

  
After a few months back, Faith goes on the pill. She doesn’t consult Dean, but she doesn’t hide it from him either. She leaves the plastic dispenser out on the bathroom sink, by the mirror, alongside the few other toiletries that she’s just starting to feel like she can take out of her travel case. These things, these normal, little things—her toothbrush in the holder, her Secret perched next to his Speed Stick—make her feel like maybe she belongs here, like maybe for the first time ever, she’s really ready to be his.

One night when they’re in bed, Dean reaches over to the bedside table for a condom and she stops him, shakes her head no, and kisses him hard, pulling his body back into her space. Dean kisses back with heightened interest, gripping her lower back with wide-stretching hands.

When Dean enters her, cock naked and slick from her juices already—they’re like teenagers in this once-again newness, rubbing and teasing for long minutes before they actually fuck—he opens his eyes extra wide. He hisses on a long exhale, arms shaking as they hold his weight in a flexing push-up above her. Faith laughs, because he looks kind of ridiculous, and also amazingly, like porn-star hot. Dean chuckles a little too, then says sheepishly, “It’s just...been awhile since I've done it like this.” Then he kisses her with slow, agonizingly intimate flashes of tongue. “You know what I mean,” he vibrates into her mouth, “without anything. Not since...”

“Yeah,” she says, hypnotized by his concentration on her, on this, on them. “You must have, like, super-sperm or something, ‘cause you still managed to knock me up.”

For a second or two she clenches with fear that she’s said the wrong thing—broken this perfect lusty moment with the sadness from before—but then Dean just grins lopsidedly and says, “Yeah, you know me, I’m all man.”

And then they’re laughing and pulsing into one other and when Faith comes Dean’s chin is hooked into the curve of her neck; she can smell the shampoo on his hair, and everything’s _so good_.

~

They have to wait until Jan’s asleep to screw, and one night while they’re listening for the even breathing sounds from across the hall that indicate she’s konked out for the night, Faith and Dean just lie there naked, still pink from the shower. Dean’s playing with Faith’s breasts lazily, lightly rolling her nipples between forefinger and thumb, just often enough to make her on edge. They’re talking about nothing—his car, the vamps she dusted last night—and Faith likes it, their own strange form of calm, but her body’s whining for him and she wants more.

Dean lowers his mouth to her right breast, licking lightly before catching the tip between his teeth. She cries out and he smiles, puts his finger to his mouth. _Hush_.

“You have the best tits ever. Really, others don’t compare.” He’s cupping them now and his hands are big enough to engulf them whole. She looks down, bottom lip hanging open and waits for more words. “Big knockers are totally overrated, when there are ones like yours, so perky and cute.”

Unbidden, Faith thinks about how she never breast-fed and that’s probably why at over thirty, she’s still got boobs like a young girl. As if he can read her thoughts, Dean goes on, saying shakily, “Not that they weren’t good when they were bigger too. God, I just wanted to fuck you all the time when you were pregnant.” There’s a broken, dissonant note in his voice, and it cuts into her, hearing the expired longing there.

~

Faith thinks she knows when the turning point was, when Dean decided to take her back for real. Sam had just left for England, riding off into the night with Willow on the Council’s private jet. She really should have figured out before that they’d get along, geek to geek, but Faith never thought about it. It makes her sorry, once again, that she’d hidden these two parts of her world from each other for so long.

Faith was living across town then, in an efficiency, because she’s never needed much stuff. She wasn’t entirely sure why she was still here—they could have sent another slayer. It didn’t have to be her. But it felt like a triumph unrivalled by any other in her entire life when Dean let her “babysit” Jan for the first time, and an even greater one when he started calling her first to go out on a hunt. There was that.

They drove out to see a woman named Missouri, a motherish, middle-aged, black lady who reminded Faith of a woman who’d lived on her block when she was a kid. Tongue like a whip and a big, big heart. Miss Regina was the only mom on the street who didn’t treat Faith like she was bad news, destined to be that way. On the ride there, Faith rolled the window down low, enjoying the wind in her hair. Dean was uncharacteristically nervous, even for being around her, biting his fingernails and muttering to himself, and Faith wondered about that. But this Missouri lady was the one who could give them the information they needed—that’s what Dean had said after he got off the phone with Sam. When Faith questioned further, he’d just said, “Look, I don’t know, but that’s what Visions boy had to say for himself,” and that was that.

When they got there, Dean did most of the talking, showing Missouri the amulet and book of spells, sounding shifty the whole time and shuffling his feet. And that’s when Faith understood what his problem was—this woman was one of the few people Faith had ever seen get the better of Dean with words—take his away—almost as good at it as she herself used to be.

When they were on their way out, Faith still hadn’t said much, and so she was surprised when Missouri stopped her on their way out the door, tugging on her sleeve and whispering into her ear confidentially, “He’ll come around, baby girl, you’ll see. All the Winchester men are stubborn, and you ripped him up bad, but he’ll mend, just you wait. But you have to be willing to face up to all the hurt both of you got.”

Missouri raised her head and stared hard at Dean, who patently ignored her gaze, growling out, “Thanks for the info. Come on, Faith, we’ve gotta go.” But on the long drive home, he rested his arm on the back of the seat behind Faith. She could smell his sweat and it gave her an unexpected flicker of hope.  
  
~

They did have sex when Faith was pregnant, but she always made him turn off the light. She didn’t want to think about her growing belly, her swelling breasts—didn’t want him to look at them either. Faith has tried not to think about those desperate couplings since. Tried to avoid remembering the actual fucking and the way it satisfied her, even though she was unconsciously already starting to pull herself away at that point. And she especially didn’t want to dwell on what it was like afterwards, seeing Dean all sticky and unhappy. She realizes now that it was because the thing that was making her so miserable made him hot for her—that’s why he’d had that look in his eyes like he wanted to cry.

It takes her awhile to broach the subject with Dean. “You know I love her, right? But Dean, I—I just can’t ever do that again.”

He nods and strokes her hip, looking down.

“It’s okay,” Dean says, in an understanding tone that forces her to try and believe him. “But Faith—” and that’s when he looks up, “in spite of all the shit that’s happened, I’m not sorry I have her.” Jan still doesn’t know that Faith’s her real mother, and neither of them are ready to tell her yet. Faith doesn’t want her to feel unwanted any more than Dean does.

Faith pauses for a long while before responding. “Dean, look at me.” He hesitantly complies. Faith holds Dean’s face in her hands, tracing his freckles with her thumbs, reveling in the fact that anyone would trust themselves under these hands, the ones that smashed and destroyed, the ones that drew so much blood. And then she simply says, “I love you,” only realizing afterwards that in all these years she’d never said that to him once—out loud anyway. Dean stares back at her with still-disbelieving eyes, so she kisses him, trying to wash away his doubts with her tongue.

He asks her in a scratchy whisper, “If I want something from you that's really weird, will you promise not to give me shit?”

She says, yes, anything, but is still taken aback when he says, “Can we just pretend? Just this one time, that we’re doing it over, that we could make her and you’d want it? I know it’s too late…” Startled as she is, Faith gives her wordless consent, drawing Dean in and arranging her body over his, so he can look at her the way he likes.

And that’s when Faith really starts to believe that maybe things are gonna eventually be okay. That even though they made each other bleed over and over—because neither one was able to understand the depths of the others’ scars—they might have a chance of making it right.

Maybe she’s a freak. Maybe it took leaving him—leaving them—for Faith to realize she could never get enough. Because with Dean, she always wants more: every flavor of him, every mood, every crazy streak.

Over breakfast the next morning, when he’s placing her eggs on the plate as she sits with her legs spread wide, feeling groggy minus the coffee that Dean’s still not done with yet, Faith says, “You’ve got me if you want me, Winchester. You’ve got me good. Just one thing—we’re not getting married, all right?”

“You’re staying though.”

“As long as you want me.”

He smiles the smile that completely fucks with her world and presses his lips lightly to her forehead. “It's cool. We’ll live in sin. Our kid’s already a bastard—it’s the least we can do.”


	15. Chapter 15: Road to Nowhere

**Road to Nowhere**

_I was looking back on my life._  
 _And all the things I’ve done to me._  
 _I’m still looking for the answers._  
 _I’m still searching for the key._

_The wreckage of my past keeps haunting me._  
 _It just won’t leave me alone._  
 _I still find it all a mystery._  
 _Could it be a dream?_  
 _The road to nowhere leads to me._

_Through all the happiness and sorrow._  
 _I guess I’d do it all again._  
 _Live for today and not tomorrow._  
 _It’s still the road that never ends._

_The road to nowhere’s gonna pass me by._  
 _I hope we never have to say goodbye._  
 _I never want to live without you._

 

Sam’s riding shotgun next to Dean on their way out on a hunt; it’s just like old times. Sort of. Except that the car’s a slightly different shade of black. His brother’s newest pet project is a Mustang, still late sixties model though. And this time Sam represents the Watcher’s Council of Britain—Dean’s the only rogue demon hunter here.

“Hey Sammy, tell you what. I’ll let you pick the tunes if you want, seeing as you came out here special and everything. You can even listen to that Radiohead crap you like.” Dean’s voice sounds placating, and suddenly Sam’s really annoyed.

“Do you let _her_ pick the music now too?” Sam says, knowing that he sounds like a petulant child.

Dean gives him a scorching look. “Give it a rest, man. Leave Faith out of this. This is just you and me right now, all right? Come on, be chill.”

“It’s just—I just can’t believe you let her move in, you chump, after everything. It’s bullshit and you know it.”

Dean sighs as he downshifts, then starts drumming his fingertips on the steering wheel, clearly agitated, but Sam doesn’t care right now. If Dean can’t be properly pissed off on his own account, then Sam will do it for him; that’s how it’s always been.

“I mean, I get why you let her see Jan, okay? Faith’s her mom and it’s good that she’s finally starting to admit that and everything, but Jesus Christ. Dean, she ruined you. How can you act like you just forgot about all of that?”

“I didn’t forget, Sam,” Dean says quietly, staring straight ahead at the road, jaw clenched.

Silence reigns for a few excruciating minutes until Dean picks back up right where he left off, like it had all built up. “Do you think it was easy, dude? That I’m ever going to completely forgive her for bailing on us like that? But I don't have to, because I forgive her _enough_ , okay? And I understand her, I think." Dean pauses and purses his lips, taking on a different tone that hits Sam in the gut. "Sam, you know as well as I do—she had it rough. It's not an excuse or anything. It’s just—she’s trying, dude, she really is—you should see it. It’s kind of hilarious actually. It’s almost a _good_ thing she wasn’t here for the diaper phase because I think she might have lost her mind. Wuss.”

“That’s not funny, Dean.” In his head, Sam can hear what Dean _isn’t_ saying: that he forgave Sam for leaving—both times. But Sam never abandoned his own child; it’s not the same. Dean’s capacity for unconditional love on the other hand—that seems to be.

“Look, what the fuck do you want, Sam? You left, and that’s awesome for you and you know I’m totally on board with that, but did you want me and Jan to be alone? I’m proud of you, dude, and Faith is too—you know she put in a word for you, right? Not that you needed it—you were born to be part of the tweed squad. Plus, this is a hell of lot better than you ending up a freaking _lawyer_ or whatever.”

“Stop changing the subject, Dean.”

“I’m not! I’m just telling you about my life, because you’re my brother and if I can’t tell you this shit then that just…really sucks.”

Sam doesn’t know what to say to that.

But what Dean says next breaks him, and not just because he knows it’s got to be incredibly hard for Dean to come out with the words, “I’m—I’m happy, so can you please just let it be?”

For a supposed “tough guy”, Dean really can look exactly like a puppy dog sometimes, so Sam relents and shuts up. He spaces out for a minute or two, thinking about the pleading looks he catches in Faith’s eyes from time to time. How she tries in her own weird, understated way to suck up to him—letting him take the remote control, teasing him less, little stuff like that. If this was a few years ago, when she was his tough-ass partner in crime and co-conspirator in the noble project of the Annoyance of Dean Winchester, he’d have reveled in such things.

But then Dean—being Dean—chooses this quiet moment to play “gross Sam out,” saying, “Besides, man, it’s not like I just let her have _this_ right away,” as he grabs his crotch through his jeans, turning his head to smirk at Sam.

Sam grabs the wheel and shrieks, “Oh my god, Dean, you’re driving, pay attention to the road, for crying out loud! And also, as usual, you’re completely fucking sick.”

Dean doesn’t miss a beat reclaiming the wheel. “Don’t get your panties in a twist, _Samantha_. Anyway, as I was saying, I made her _wait_ for it, dude. Well, actually, no, I gave her a little taste early, but I was drunk as hell and it was the night after we killed the Demon so I figure I get a pass for traumatic circumstances. Having a chick chase after you? That’s the shit, all right. Well, except for the whole not getting laid part. That was lame.” Dean looks thoughtful. Sam just shakes his head, because it’s just like Dean to make light of something this serious, and make it pervy to boot.

But Sam can’t say that his brother doesn’t have range, because Dean turns on a dime with his next breath, saying earnestly, “But really, Sam, she wasn’t just trying to get in my pants—you saw this part, even if you won’t admit it—Faith wants to do a good job with Jan and I really think she put that first. It’s not…easy for her. Give her a break. Give _me_ a break. I need it.”

Sam nods just slightly, looking over as Dean continues, “I miss you, dude. You’re only here for a few days this time—can we just…not fight?”

Sam tastes his assent in his mouth before giving it, deciding to add a dash of snark to make it more comfortable. “Okay. I’ll try. But you’re still a royal pain in the ass, so it’s going to be hard.”

Dean smiles and reaches over to turn the radio nob. “Hey, I take pride in that. And speaking of, I’ve changed my mind. It’s Sabbath all the way. You can listen to girly boys on your own time.” Dean cranks the volume up a bit and then shouts over the music. “So, feel like ordering up a vision to help me out with my navigation here?”

Sam sighs peaceably. “Dude, you know it doesn’t work that way. The Powers That Be don’t take orders from a guy like me.”

“Yeah, I know, but it’d be nice. Convenient.”

Sam keeps listening to Dean rattle on about the job ahead as he stares out at the scenery going by. No matter how cool it is that he gets paid—legally—to spend most of his time in libraries poring through old books, Sam’s glad this is still part of his job description. Best of both worlds—and yeah, he can admit now that he kind of likes this shit.

But Dean _is_ this kind of shit, just weirdly now also with the living room full of toys, beers and pool with “the guys” on the weekends, and fixing cars on the side. Actually, that last part isn’t that weird at all. And when Sam sees the way Dean looks at Jan, that bit seems completely right also. So that’s why this is different than when Sam went to Stanford. Because now he knows that Dean’s got something that’s his, and with or without Faith, his brother will be all right.  
  
The main part about all of this that actually sucks is that he wants to forgive Faith too. Sam wants his friend back.


	16. Chapter 16: Dance All Night & Epilogue

**Dance All Night**

_I ain't lonely now._  
 _Yeah, I've got someone I love._  
 _Someone I think about._  
 _Someone for me to take care of._

_And dance all night._  
 _Dance all night._  
 _Dance all night._  
 _Yeah, I think I feel alright._

_She ain't lonely now._  
 _See her shuffle 'cross the floor._  
 _Yeah, she's happier now._  
 _See her smile and say 'come on.'_

 

_“I want to stop losing people we love. I want you to go to school. I want Dean to have a home…I just want this to be over.”_

-John Winchester to Sam Winchester, SPN 1.21, “Salvation.”

~

Sam takes a cab from the airport, because they aren’t expecting him until the next day. He took an earlier flight out of Heathrow, because he couldn’t wait to be back in a place where people call things what they are—french fries instead of “chips” and bathroom instead of “loo.” When he arrives on the front porch, the screen door is open so he just walks right in and settles his luggage by the front door. He almost trips over a pile of weapons on his way into the living room. After he steadies himself, Sam sticks his head into the room first and finds Jan sitting Indian style on the couch with a pile of papers and school books surrounding her, chewing on a pencil. “Where’re the folks, Jan-I-Am?” he calls out.

“Sam!” she exclaims, jumping up and running across the carpet to jump on him like a puppy, wrapping her skinny arms around his neck. Jan starts talking a mile a minute, the way that young girls are likely to do, and Sam tries to play back exactly how many months it’s been since his last visit, trying to figure out exactly when she started getting so damn big.

“Faith wanted to go dancing and Daddy went with her, because he’s totally fucking whipped. They’re like, so _old_ though. It’s pathetic. And…”

Sam drops her gently on the ground, saying, “You kiss your momma with that mouth?”

Jan grins and settles back on the couch. “Where do _you_ think I learned to talk like that?”

Sam reclines on the couch next to her and stretches out his legs, looking Jan over indulgently—long, coltish legs and unselfconscious determination in her pre-teen eyes. “Huh. So you’re old enough to curse now, but you’re still calling him ‘Daddy?’”

Jan scowls briefly and changes the subject, saying brightly, “So, anything exciting happen in the rest of the world?”

“We-ell, it’s been kinda crazy for me lately, a bunch of new slayers and there was this thing in New Zealand, a portal opened to a demon dimension and we had to go in there and—do you really want to hear about all of this?”

Jan rests her chin on her fists and looks up at him with voracious eyes. “Totally,” she says solemnly, “all Faith and Daddy talk about is vampires and ghosts and boring stuff like that. I want to know about the _really_ cool things.”

“Okay then, but it looks like you’ve got a lot of homework there. Don’t want to get you in trouble if you don’t finish it.”

“It’s cool,” Jan says, “I’m ahead, and besides, they just sign the report cards and that’s it. Plus,” she adds shyly, “I’m getting all A’s.”

“That’s awesome! Dean must be really proud.”

“Yeah, I guess,” she says, twisting a dark brown curl with her finger. “I mean, of course he is. Totally.” She leans in then and whispers conspiratorially, “I heard my dad telling the guys at the garage the other day when he thought I wasn’t listening. Of course, he also told them that I can hit the target every time at the range, which isn’t exactly true.”

Sam laughs and shakes his head, saying, “Yeah, well we all know Dean hasn’t exactly always been known for being the <i>most</i> truthful guy in the world. I hope that’s not something you pick up. Anyway, so about New Zealand…”

~

When Faith and Dean get back, Sam and Jan are both half passed out with the TV on, playing the old monster movies that Jan loves. Faith strips off her leather jacket and clomps over, shaking Jan and saying, “Get up, kiddo, it’s time for bed. You’ve got karate in the morning, and _I’m_ not waking up at the crack of dawn on a Saturday to take you if I gotta push your little butt out of bed in the morning.” Jan opens her eyes sleepily and looks up, mumbling, “Sure, whatever,” and falling like a ragdoll into Faith’s arms as she hoists her up.

“Good to see ya, Sammy. I’ll be back down in a bit, and then you’re gonna tell me all the dirt about Buffy, and Willow’s latest little girlfriend, and whatever the hell else,” Faith says as she settles the half-asleep Jan on her own two feet. “And I’m not kidding around. I want _all_ the dirt—the filthiest you’ve got.”

“Sure, sure,” Sam says, twisting a little smile in her direction before turning his attention to Dean, who’s accepting a sleepy kiss on the cheek from Jan. “So, you went _dancing_ , huh? Since when do you do that?”

As soon as the girls are gone, Dean gets up and slaps Sam lightly upside the head. “Since now, Watcher boy. She dances—I drink and watch. It works out. You want a beer? There’s some in the fridge.”

“Yeah, definitely,” Sam replies and watches as his brother ambles over to the kitchen, limping slightly from some new injury or another, but otherwise looking pretty good.

“So,” Sam says as Dean hands him a sweating bottle, “when the hell are you going to come and see _me_ already?”

Dean plunks his ass down on the couch and takes a swig from his own beer. “Ah, that would be never. You know I don’t fly, dude. That shit’s not safe.” Sam shakes his head. Dean acts totally unaware of how incredibly ridiculous what he just said really is, considering.

“Then why do you let Jan come over every summer?” Sam pokes.

Dean ignores Sam’s attempt at imposing logic on the conversation and asks, “How long’s your geekfest gonna be this year?”

“Don’t know yet. Think I’m getting three weeks off in a row though. I’ve been a good boy—my paper on the ‘Colorado Vampiric Anomalies’ was _quite_ well-received,” Sam says, only sort of trying not to sound smug.

“Right, of course,” Dean says, sticking his thumbs in his belt loops and leaning back.

“Why? What are you and Faith going to do?”

Dean’s tongue flicks out slightly over his lower lip. “What d’you think we’re going to do? We’ll fuck in the afternoon on this here couch and eat all the junk food we can while the kid’s not around to be nutritionally corrupted. ” If there was an Olympic event for leering, Dean would totally make gold.

Sam lets out an exaggerated guffaw. “I wouldn’t worry about that too much—she’s smarter than the two of you combined.”

Dean’s smile shifts into proud papa mode and he says, “Ha fucking ha, smart ass. Dude, if I didn’t know better, I’d say _you_ were the milkman. If she didn’t have my good looks that is.” He folds his arms over his chest. “We’re talking about going to Vegas.”

“You finally gonna make an honest woman out of her this time or just play grifters like usual?” Sam teases.

Dean snorts. “Of course not. Don’t need a piece of paper to tell me she’s my old lady.”

“I’m your _what_?” Faith says, appearing out of nowhere and flicking Dean on the ear.

“Ouch! Knock it off, woman. I’m delicate,” Dean says happily, grabbing Faith by the waist and pulling her onto his knee. She protests at first but then settles in, propping her feet up on Sam’s lap at the other end of the couch.

“You’re such a friggin’ whiner, _Gramps_ ,” Faith says, kissing Dean with a visible flash of tongue. Sam’s eyeballs lift up towards the ceiling, but he’s used to this so whatever. They cut it out soon though, and Faith turns her head in Sam’s direction, proclaiming, “Gettin’ hitched is for regular people. We’re not like that— _boring_.”

“Well, ain’t that the truth,” Sam says absently.

This is (almost) the weirdest form of domesticity he’s ever encountered, but it seems to suit them just fine. And yeah, the fight’s never really over—even during lulls like this they all know that—but Sam hopes that some way, somehow, his father is watching—that he can see this too.

 

**Epilogue: Not a Pretty Girl/Straight Line Revisited**

_I am not a pretty girl._  
 _I don't want to be a pretty girl._  
 _No, I want to be more than a pretty girl._

Faith didn’t get her first car until she was thirty-five, but she always has done things ass-backwards. She felt like an asshole when Dean gave her the keys inside a felt jewelry box on her birthday—her bitching about him staying late at the garage seemed pretty lame then.

Faith loves driving fast (but doesn’t when Jan’s with her). When she pulls up at a stoplight and some random dude catcalls, Faith automatically flips the bird. Once upon a time she only felt beautiful reflected in Dean’s eyes—now it doesn’t matter. ‘Cause she’s about so much more than that.

 

_I was born to a cold wind. Take the color right out of your eyes._  
 _I just keep what I can carry now, and leave the rest behind._

Dean has a new Impala. Well, actually it’s pieced together from the original plus the fleet of gutted ones littering his front lawn. There are still guns filling his trunk, but less crap in the backseat. On Sundays, he waxes it so the paintjob will stay smooth and sleek.

He likes taking long drives alone sometimes to clear his head, but warmth always spreads through his body as he pulls into the driveway when he gets home. Dean doesn’t _have_ to cram everything that really matters into his car anymore, but it’s still possible—there are four seatbelts after all.


End file.
